we both attended divinity school. we both have a boy and a girl. and one of the things that i was curious about is if journalism and religion, we often -- will talk more about this, but journalism and faith or conversation which often seem to be in opposition to each other because in journalism we have a pain to set up your mother says she loves you, check it out. [laughter] ..

that did is probably a promise that is still alive in our field of journalism and maybe ever culture as a whole. and i was looking back on it devoted to the cold war era that i thought was very much motivated by the same big ideas i had inherited from my grandfather the cold war was about saving the world and defined in the clash of good versus evil. i tell to -- try to tell my children about this it was divided up to capitalist good and communist tivo and i love journalism. [laughter] it never ever experienced.

[laughter] the. [applause] my daughter is 16 and doesn't read the newspaper and it doesn't understand the appeal of the news. i still see the appeal and the importance and she says you turn on the news it to you about terrible things that are happening that the press you. why do you do that yourself? [laughter] and i don't agree with her beds i do think there was something in that that brought me back to journalism to do something differently because even with a divided berlin with people's personal problems were defined geopolitical strategic negotiations, i did see that there was the aspect of life close to the

ground where people were making meeting even if they didn't have political freedom or wealth of the way we have it. where we work out our integrity and substance is said relationships how we lead our lives and structure our lives. i gradually even thinking about taking religion seriously i realized eventually that what is happening is impart a religious traditions in part of what we call the spiritual aspect of life. so that is how i circled around but after i got my divinity degree, you had this experience being a journalist, was portrayed in

the news and in the media live coverage of the aspect of life it was so inadequate not even telling a fraction of the store abutted religion may be other aspects of life because we did not have the fluency, we always thought the guys planting bombs or the people saying the most vicious things that are real and frightening but that is just a sliver of the story. it is so much more diverse as well. when i was going to do did he school in the mid 90's you have jerry falwell and pat robertson, they stood for religion, not just christianity.

it was a reaction to that i started to find my way back to journalism and felt it could do justice to this subject and unknowing public radio was a place we could create this project i found divinities school a tremendous relief because it was the first time in my religious life i had been invited or encouraged to question. think we were raised in a similar fashion that god is said it and that ends it and you believe it or good by. so when you began on the dirty what -- on your journey what was the goal? >> never to become a clergy person i never thought of myself drawn to. i probably very much like you wanted to apply my mind

and be sure. because that is what was lacking in the religion of my childhood as they found the world to be a very complicated place and also it very interesting place and i needed to know i could take all of that i have seen and experienced and that complexity and in the intellectual edge and could also be relevant to have a place in the study of theology in a religious life. it was intellectually thrilling and again, when i came out of that, but was coming out of the radio or the television was equally thrilling. that is not one way to have describe dapper but it was

inadequate. >> what do your more about the stories that you describe been "einstein's god" but you spend a lot of time on the news stories over the last decade has wars ii about science and policy with issues of stem cells and assisted suicide to some degree and i wanted to ask d think we're really still fighting that culture war zero or at the end of the day the truth has long since been called, where in the world most people are faced? >> i certainly think in this realm of this crash of civilization between lines in religion the debates that happen on the surface even

on the pages of "the new york times" book review are not happening in real life. area only have to look at what has happened in all the major medical schools in this country the last 10 years. one of the people i interviewed that used to work for oprah. [laughter] perhaps these religious days to the religious figure of our time. he was grating technology to save people's life and describes it in a way i find deliberating not ask us alternative were complementary medicine but ass said globalization of medicine. one thing that has happened, and western medicine in countering best practices around the world that when they talk about

healing, they think much more holistic way and there are spiritual technologies involved. and medicine used to be one of the heart is. people insisted on rationality on what can be tested for proven but in that realm over the last 20 or 30 years, that experimentation had taken place and the very different approaches had been validated. that is one example and it is not taken into account when we have richard verses whoever to set up to debate with him that is not the whole story. >> i did find it interesting how many scientists have their own crisis or maybe the lifelong grappling with some history of the other?

>> guest: i think we all do have that grappling but don't give ourselves over to it. but what i think you are getting at is that a scientist with the religious are not they're very much like religious people, they honor its and the light in it and shoe on it and pursue it too and that is maybe why it when people talk about the depression and he ultimately is not a religious person still but there is, a spiritual aspect although he does not need to pin that down or tie it up with theology. >> host: you cheated and looked at my nose per car

was going to read a section. [laughter] but he talks about the fact many of you know, his work. but how we die is the work many people will have read but he talked to write experiencing a very deep depression that is a debilitating so he said not in this book not how reed died but how we live, he wrote to the human spirit is the result of the adaptive biological mechanism that protects our species to sustain this answer to perpetuate the existence of humanity. that south flight basically there is a vessel up there that is wired for the spirit. does he really believe that?

>> what he said there a lot of people said there is where they are mapping religious experience is. but it is eliminating and telling us a lot. like others it does not prove the existence one way or the other because you could say with human spirit with the evolutionary accomplishment of the brain it is biologically rooted it does not need a god is a biological accomplishment or, if there is a creator or einstein or my door intelligence behind in the universe, if there is an intelligence, would that not

to intelligence design us biologically are the lot -- physiological to experience him or her or it? >> it still leaves the question but i think we ask it a more a sophisticated way. >> host: how does that stick with you? >> it is intriguing. i suppose hist i am more on the cited does not rule anything out. i do like to think about what we might learn about the naturof broader how we reflect on the nature of god through these kinds of things we're learning about what happened and our brain. i really do believe

neuroscience and the six throw out some of the most exciting materials of theology and 21st century think theologians could go away and work with that. i love to think how would galileo? >> host: this is the point* that i want to remind you that you are given cards and we hope that to you will use them. because we're happy to chat among marcel's but happy to include your. [laughter] lightyear question answer thoughts or comments or checks. [laughter] and pass them. you can figure that out and in a couple of minutes we will include you in our conversation. don't worry about making always.

we are okay up here. did einstein believed in god? >> guest: not decried my grandfather believed then, a personal god. one way you can summarize that is he had a real reverence and a young colleague of his who had a reverence of the laws of physics and the laws of nature. but for him the idea of a personal god, if there were a mind that created these brilliant laws of physics then how could it be this dodd would then

interrupt -- interrupt and metal with them because we pray with this prayer or that prayer? he did not believe in a personal god. i am not sure that if it would be right to say i have but problem it is written for different people in different ways them posed theological questions and talked about the cosmic cents and talked about how amazed he was by wonder and mystery he recognized that religious people are also animated by wonder and mystery but that he was content with inklings and wanderings rather than questions and conclusions. >> host: which is lovely.

what about darwin? >> guest: darman? dar win was raised in a christian culture and headed to be a minister although that has much to do with social status and culture as it did to do with faith. i feel we have complete the misremembered are one and i would love to be part to start a new disk negative -- discussion not only what he has to do with religion but helping us have to defend imagination. at the end of his life he was agnostic and i think he was very similar to einstein that what he observed and

discovered were the natural laws were creation he use that word all the way through the species but the creation for him was not then as people imagined it as a onetime act that everything was preordained and fixed from the beginning of time he saw it as say self organizing progression that every aspect of the creation fou its identity live in and through chaos and struggle and beauty and brutality and all of the fullness of what it means to be alive and at the end of his life it was ingenious and intelligence so there

was this ingenious intelligence that sets in motion why would that metal and an end to interrupt of the christian theology of his times adjusted? the other thing i find so fascinating and important i think dar wind cave rigid in his time this very civilized country was basically running the a global slave trade. in eight clinton there we're putting people who were out of work in debtors' prison because they did not know what to do with them. he also could not abide by

the fought -- by the thought that this person was made to be a slave this bug was meant to be swallowed by this bird in this tectonic plate was meant to shift. he could not abide by that kind of faith and i think that dar one liberated everybody who came after that even a creationist of our time don't imagine a god who sat down and wrote to everyone's cancer or every earthquake so i think there's a lot of theological richness and echo to darwin's thought we have not even begun to pick out on budget the crisis for little

believers of course, there is the inevitable my kids are obviously i have no problem. [laughter] buds it is the beginning isn't it the beginning of the universe ultimate crisis? the creation? it is the unseen hand but if not for that than what? where does that come from? even their similar to what we were talking about, i still don't think there is any science that rules out some type of creative intelligence that sets it all in motion and we keep

revising our understanding of that einstein did realize that to he was not sure what to do with this but he had opened people to think about the fourth time and i had this beautiful conversation that said he reflex on the fact it opens up the notion of beyond time. one thing we need to get away from in a big general way is science in and of itself is not acs sticks and the scientists will be the first people to tell you that and when science is interesting to have many more fascinating things for

overlay. [laughter] that would be futile as opposed to cross the street people who thought that way but that is not what is happening now and i find such rich material just talking about what they are doing working on the shape of the universe or how we can know what is real or true or even some of the words of dark energy you don't need to talk about and it is a diminishment of science to force it to into this discussion what they are proving or disproving about god 87 as strikes me a similar change moving away

from the disputes of the last decade what states seem to be but the climate change conversation to me seems in part a theological dispute. >> guest: say some more. that is interesting. >> host: what you believe the relationship of the human to the national world is it that we are placed under our dominion for our use? or does the natural world have its own value and deserves to exist on its own terms? there is the ethical issue of how we use that which exist apart from us but the theological question what do we choose to believe? >> also how they have been interpreted. there are some very conservative christian theologians who are visiting this taking this to churches and starting new conversations to say that

this interpretation had dominion over all the creatures not true to the language and going back to the language to find the themes of stewardship as opposed to dominion that runs all the way through. and here is the interesting intersection i remember interviewing richard and he was one of the people who opened the discussion and was compelled to do that after he was invited to a scientific conference and he converted to the climate

change not that he had not seen them before but had not looked for them before but they were there. i had not thought about that for a while but that is a very interesting model house science and religion can work together in completely unpredictable ways to bring them forward to before you get yourself and place but there are those two will decry where they believe the mysteries and deeply held believes which go to the core of there being to be disregarded as so many neurons firing off.

with the use of jerry falwell as the airport representatives of the corpus of religious thought but are there those who are poor representatives who also need to be challenged? >> guest: i don't know it is by lead narrow our understanding science i am sure that happens. what i have been aware is that scientists taking on religion but in fact, taking on a khartoum cut out. the religion that richard or christopher hitches will shoot down is in fact, a very childish religion may be that is from their own

experience in when it stopped, but they are not in fact. [laughter] and. [applause] but they end up being as judgmental writing off entire swaths of people exactly what we object to the religious fundamentalists that is not a good place to start. i am kind of curious to see their reaction to the book i suspect there will be some scientists or people who are part of the debate that i just mentioned who are concerned we use the words "einstein's god" together in fact, i have seen that criticism and i get it because it is important to me to stress i am not trying to force harmony and to say

he had my grandfather's face, i'm not that einstein used the word got all the time. we can put that together. some of the time he was making jokes and one of his most famous statements was a scientific joke when he said god does not play dice with universe i have seen that taken out of context that it was a statement of faith but in fact, he was completely against the unruly world a point* of physicist were describing and this was his way of saying he did not buy it and another physicist came back with who is einstein to tell god what to do? [laughter] that is one way to say i will not apologize for putting these two words together i do think it is important that we bring a

new wants to this and in fact, science and religion independently of that demand that. >> host: thank you. now we would like to hear from you. >> the first question which interview was the most challenging or difficult and why? >> guest: which interview? >> host: she is asking you [laughter] >> guest: do you have paid most challenging and to do? >> the one i did this morning. >> they do because i get asked this question if it is usually the last one if it went well.

>> host: do want to think for a minute? earlier this week i interviewed some of the minutemen organizations which if you remember, have been engaging and border patrols save the federal government has failed to address the question of undocumented immigration and recently said they will disband the national organization i found this challenging in the same reason that you do that those of us that doing gauge how do challenge of relief when it is not rooted in reality as i experience it? some of the conversation was you know, that obama will do this or that and i say this with all respect because i don't invite people on my program to abuse them.

[applause] but if somebody is expressing a belief and it does not comport to the realities that i experience this is not what the constitution allows for the birth certificate. [laughter] [applause] what you do with that? i must say this is the ongoing challenge for me. >> guest: this is the difference between my program and your program. [laughter] because i am not covering the news in the same way. and it is a highly produced program and we are looking for was down.

[laughter] >> host: did you just a dog me? how. [laughter] >> guest: it is not that i agree but it is not by a greek or disagree but it is so far removed from my reality i learned so much but it is hard to define it you know, it when you see it or you know, it when you hear it. it is a privilege and a luxury to have a program to 70 are focusing on scientists but you also talked to people who were of different factors ounce one

of the questions it raises for me is the question of radical islam and is an ongoing source of fear in our country and other parts of the world which is not to say that christianity has not been violent or people acted in the name of god or somebody who has killed people in allegiance to his version of what he thought god was or is. i now believe anybody in this room would embrace. engaging in believes deeply held the outcome of which is not known. >> year is the way we have tried to approach that. those fundamentalist voices are well covered and we

heard which vs. of the q'uaran they will cite so as we try to go through those polled dynamic of islam and i have interviewed a number of people. but i don't interview anyone about islam who are not muslim. we have had many voices on the show and last summer we did a project where we did have listeners oliver the world and many voices. i tried to talk to people who are deep inside because my interest is what is religious that is happening and what is not dan the theological implications and movement as opposed to politics. i have interviewed a number of people who were very

close to that kind of violence and extremism who can speak to what happened and how they've made their way out, what the tradition means to them now. >> here are a couple in the same vein how do we began the conversation with friends or family who tend to think and black or white or god or no god? as a mother had reduced our this conversation with your children to get them interested in religion and spirituality? >> i have a 16 year-old daughter who is in acs. [laughter] i have failed. [laughter] she is the atheist. i think she will be great. [laughter] i don't think the way to a

discussion with people who may may love or drive us crazy i don't think that is head-on i don't think we should engage people in the discussion of god or no god. sell win high started thinking of doing the radio program, i learned to the original and one of them was a very wise man where muslims christians and jews talking for years all the we don't think that is possible based on the headlines that we hear that is best to comment at a slant and that is actually what we do on our program. we come up the whole subject

this is not to say we will talk whether a god exists or not but what it means to be a christian but last week we interviewed two jesuit to were astronomers through their work and that is a fascinating way to circle around in a nonthreatening way and another one that is quite revealing to talk about these ultimate things. i would say don't force that decision of the find something you can talk about in the subjects of people said to me throwing food across the table at each other at thanksgiving with the hot button issue of gay marriage but i remember one of the most important discussions about that an

evangelical say we need to stop talking about this in terms of dog, and believe fans stock being honest of the hopes and fears we're bringing to the table. we learn the vocabulary from the media and the political culture that says you set up your position and argue it out and that is not have rican as ever talk to each other or move forward. think of how you can humanize it. >> it is not to move forward it is to win. [laughter] but the person asking this question i think is just interested. >> what about that? and has been said for years never discussed a good dinner table religion or politics or money or sex scandal but we talk about those all the time. ad nauseam.

>> host: i wanted to come to your thanksgiving. [laughter] >> host: but in a journalist and allows shy people to be rude of. [laughter] do you engage? but the people in your life? the person sitting across the airplane seat, what do you believe? >> no. i don't even do that with the people that i interviewed. i rarely ask someone about their image of god unless it is organically involved in the conversation. what is interesting about what i do is when i tell people they often start to divulged the fact that this

part of life is important to to them. they have to come out of the closet on this subject. [laughter] and that is something that is changing in our culture preferred is a big deal they have the a subject of religion. it is new it is speaking of putting faith on the air the culture is growing up about this and we're realizing we need a sophisticated and diverse ways to talk about this part of life to talk about politics and money and we also realize that talking about money is in no less objective than religion. how many hours did we hear people explaining hedge funds and derivatives? economic projection? is that rational?

[laughter] no. it is not. that is fine. milan to a knowledge we want people to tell us what they think although they may be proven wrong tomorrow and religion is a part of life when we you're dealing for one thing, hard to talk about a fat are maybe not rationale and a narrow sense there is a hindu physicist weigh in to all of these disciplines are helping us to tell the story what it means to be human and we need all of them to tell that story. >> eight e.s.m. has received increasing attention and some believe the benefits of religious beliefs of compassion, a connection to society, i can be taught without requiring the fan

gaudy believe the stories of jesus and buddha and mohamed can be viable without necessarily requiring of baby in the fifth in and of god? >> guest: okay. i believe you can be passionate and loving it have the ethical purposely stifle life. i believe that. you could be buddhist i am not sure you could take the teachings of jesus as well you do not need to believe in got to be a good person and i also think some of these go to one side just as we are growing up and

talking about it in a complicated way i think acs that have put people into a box, i believe they have a spiritual life and if the spiritual life is a part of life where we are pursuing their questions but not exclusively their domain of what it means to be human, what matters and a life for a death, we have so many people who said i never could have believed listening to a program called speaking of face. [laughter] but these are matters that concerns us. that to me is as exciting as a development does the fact

that we are learning to talk. >> host: one of the things i am fascinated is i had a conversation with a woman that slate roach the piece coming at of the closet and the piece opens 1/8 anyway and she runs a day stores address and runs into a friend and she says why are you centrist up on sunday? were you doing? going to church? the woman said but she was. [laughter] of i find this hilarious that she would find a need to cover satoshi said i am coming out of the closet is hilarious because this is not north korea but she did find it sufficiently risky and her social circle why?

be a grown-up put on your big girl pants. [laughter] and she said for many of her crowd religion is something to flee from that is what zero pressed me that told me i was not good enough for the person i'm of is wrong or i love evo. i am curious of hot o their religion is loud and bellicose what i call the christian belief how those people want to stand up for their faith and have the conversation i guess what they feel zero presses them. >> guest: we did this show before and i interviewed a rabbi. a lot of people feel the

baggage had very good reasons. suddenly they wonder what they want to pass on to their children and they don't want the children to have the same bad experience but she said don't let the people who ruined your tradition in, don't let them define it or have that power but people are reacting to a certain experience of a certain religion. but something bigger happening in our culture there is a great sociologists who said after the 1960's religion became something in educated western society done in private between consenting adults. [laughter] and i grew up in that world

and that is part of what public radio is up against. we are emerging from that and compartmentalized and peter. was an many sociologists that does the world through broader and technology to ago over religion would retreat and we would outgrow it. we are trying to figure out how to talk about it but fascinated half of the generation does not have the baggage they are coming to college with no experience with religion at all they come with fresh and excitement and religious studies class is at the

undergraduate level that are exploding in bringing all kinds of curiosity. and a new seriousness and it is fun to see how they change the common encounter. >> i think culture plays a role as the african-american with a margin luther king gave us a free pass we don't have to explain anything. [laughter] but i have a dear friend who covered religion for a major network who is white and i was amazed by some of the things people would say to her. you went to college and you believe that? and i am fascinated by that because nobody has ever said that to me but i wonder of

the average and the americans across the board to, i had one per cent here recently stepped down as chairman i interviewed him one sit out its annoyed him to have a blessed day. [laughter] >> what is the relationship between faith or physical health for such a -- psychological survival such as not being depressed? >> if you would not mind talking about back? >> how he when dealing with is under pressure and part of what was depressing him he was in the overwhelming fear of punishment a.

>> which he had physically inc. >> end of the question. the question of our bodies =

the mesquite squared is not so they could fully grasp but when did early on we started the program we got the funding to go weekly september 2001 and we ended up covering this spirit of islam and the spiritual reaction suppose there was

lots of religion per se we could have been covering or delving into the right at the beginning people kept telling me i cannot even reconstruct that but up their own a computer scientist who is german social really sounded like a computer scientist. [laughter] was also a theologian. working out of the artificial intelligence laboratory sa adviser at zero as they were creating of human like robots and they were having to ask the question how do we become human? they were overturning the wisdom because they were taking a critical eye

because says winning a chess game really make you who men? what is intelligence? they fine human intelligence is our interaction and relationships. she was having all of these amazing thoughts about what is incarnation, a free will? creation? and i also met to an orthodox jew who talk to me about walking through hallways and how she was reading in her works reproductive closing closing-- clothing and how she was pondering these ancient teachings of how you can make a man, a human if you could put together the

lost letters of the book of life and she is in the laboratory working with scientists who are deciphering the letters of our dna. on and on i could tell you 10 stories who does the line and start to blur? i start to realize will hold fear where science and religion whether they're interacting are not sending questions back and forth and incites it is a huge and we don't know it. >> to know what i was curious about? there are not many women in your book. >> guest: and that is the problem with the field of science. there are fewer women. esther it is then there who may be here