Is belief possible in the secular age we live in? The philosopher Charles Taylor has written a descriptive and historical account of our present age, including its conditions for belief. He says believers and nonbelievers feel a cross-pressure between immanence (meaning found only in the natural and material world) and transcendence (meaning found in a dimension beyond matter). We inhabit an immanent frame and can find significance and meaning in a humanism without transcendence. And yet we are haunted by the memory of transcendence or seek a fullness or enchantment lacking in our existence. I would like to open a discussion using Taylor's description of our age and this modern dilemma and invite explorations of whether and how we experience it and our forms of personal response. Hopefully we can avoid any tidy but false polarizations of belief vs. disbelief or religion vs. secularism or reason vs. belief.

Producer : Robert Kuisis

Robert Kuisis, Ph.D. is a psychologist/psychoanalyst in practice in Bridgehampton. He has an interest in the psychology of religion and a lifelong intrigue with "ultimate concern".