Belief or Non-Belief?: A Confrontation

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826480993 ISBN 13: 9780826480996

Publisher: Burns & Oates, 2006

In this stimulating dialogue these two great men, who stand on opposite sides of the church door, discuss some of the most controversial issues of the day. One is a respected scholar and one of the pre-eminent ecumenical churchmen of Europe; the other the world famous author of The Name of the Rose, a scholar, philosopher and self-decalred secularist, a man who writes with equal ease about Thomas Aquinas and James Joyce, computers and the medieval Templars.

Often adversarial but always amicable, their debate will fascinate many.

About the Author:

Umberto Eco was born in 1932 in Alessandria, Italy. He is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, a philosopher, historian, literary critic and aesthetician. He is the author of the international bestselling novels The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before, as well as three collections of popular essays, Travels in Hyperreality, Misreadings and How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays. Mr. Eco lives in Milan.

Review:

'This is a heartening book in demonstrating that serious and charitable dialogue between belief and nonbelief is both possible and valuable'. John Habgood, The Tablet

'Perhaps the most important thing about this book is that it was written at all, because it is a model of the way in which a dialogue between believers and non-believers should be conducted.' Karen Armstrong, The Independent

'This is a thoroughly enjoyable, invigorating work.' Times Literary Supplement

'The Eco-Martini correspondence lifts the possibility of intelligent conversation on religion to a new level.' From the Introduction by Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity, Harvard University