Free Republic

Call it intellectual trickle-down: Great thinkers of our time talk to Bill Moyers, then he talks to us. In the engrossing "Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason" (debuting 9 p.m. Friday on KCTS), he mind-melds with Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Martin Amis and other writers on the rise of radical Islam and fundamentalist Christianity, their similarities, their influence on politics — and the need for transcendence even among skeptics. The Emmy-winning broadcaster, 72, settled in for a spirited dialogue from the porch of his New Jersey home. Q: Why talk to writers about faith and reason? A: Because storytellers have...

Can religion and reason peacefully coexist? From a scan of the headlines it doesn't seem so. The world appears polarized, incapable of even agreeing to disagree on matters of faith. Journalist Bill Moyers believes that conversation can lead to a cure for what ails us -- but not conversation in which people simply shriek at each other. Moyers, who describes himself as "neither wholly a believer nor wholly a skeptic," thinks we can move away from pitting reason against faith and give equal weight to both in our discussions. Science can illuminate faith, and faith can inform science. He launches...