The question Michael Buerk and the panel will be posing is; if you don’t believe in a set of divinely inspired moral rules, how do you decide right from wrong in a world with complex and competing interests?
We live in an age where there is no longer general agreement on religion and the time when our society was united by a common set of values based on a belief in God is long gone.
Is it hopelessly optimistic to believe that Man can create an ethical framework based on a belief in individual responsibility and mutual respect or are those secular values a much a better guide than any sectarian dogma or religious text?
Can a post-religious society be a moral society and if so, whose morals will we live by?
PANEL:
Michael Buerk (Chair) Melanie Phillips; Claire Fox; Michael Portillo; Clifford Longley
WITNESSES:
Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark
Professor Alistair McGrath, Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture at King’s College and author of The Dawkins Delusion
Peter Cave, chair of the British Humanist Philosophers group and author of Humanism, a Beginner’s Guide
Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon
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