The celebrated BBC presenter John Humphrys, who recently published a book on his quest to find out whether God exists, has given an interview to the Unitarians. The General Assembly's communications consultant Jim Corrigall began the interview by asking John Humphrys about his new book - 'In God We Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist' (published in 2007) - which challenges both believers and non-believers.

Q: Your book has as its centerpiece your interviews with leaders of the three great Abrahamic faiths in Britain (for a BBC Radio Four series entitled 'Humphrys in Search of God'.) These leaders failed to convince you there was a God, and yet your book shows you continued your search. Why?
A: Well, I received an enormous number of letters in response to my programmes, and these persuaded me there are an awful lot of people out there who not only do believe, but who have perfectly good reasons for doing so. That is to say, they come to their faith for all sorts of reasons, and many of them do so through an intellectual process. It would be very arrogant to ignore people who have a faith - it is very arrogant to do so - and I was hugely impressed by their letters. I received many more than I have for any other programme.

Q: Why do you feel the three religious leaders failed to convince you?
A: Because I found them unconvincing intellectually; I found they didn't have answers to the most difficult questions. In the end, for reasons I could perfectly well understand, they all said the same thing: 'It comes down to faith'. And obviously it does, because if you are able to prove something, by definition it is not a matter of faith. And in the end it always came down with them to a matter of faith, and I don't have that faith and therefore was unable to get any satisfaction from what they said.

Q: The Chief Rabbi in Britain, Jonathan Sacks, accused you during your discussions of using the wrong metaphor in your search. Do you think this was fair?
A: Well, I didn't quite know what he meant, to be perfectly honest. They were using a different language from me, certainly. That's one of the problems with conversations with people who have a totally different experience from yourself. And in the case of those three (the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the Chief Rabbi, and the Muslim theologian Professor Tariq Ramadan): firstly they have faith, and secondly they talk the language of theology, which I don't. And because their language of theology is based on faith, it makes the simple business of communicating between believers and non-believers extremely difficult - and that's why, in a funny sort of way, the letters I received were more convincing because they were written by people who, almost overwhelmingly, were not theologians. There were quite a few ministers and clerics, but by and large, they were 'ordinary people' who'd had a particular experience or come to their faith for whatever reason - and they were speaking a language I could understand and could relate to. But I couldn't relate to an awful lot of the language I was getting from the religious leaders.

Q: So the letters - many of which were extremely moving -- were more persuasive for you than the senior theologians. Did some of the very liberal clerics you talked to, like the Rev Giles Fraser (of Putney in London) have a similar impact on you? Could he be described as a doubter too?
A: No, he wouldn't describe himself as one because he does believe. What he doesn't accept is the literal truth of much of the Bible, and he's certainly not unique in the Church of England in that. But yes, in some ways I found Giles more persuasive, in the sense that he was acknowledging that some things in the Bible make no sense at all and he had no problem accepting that. It didn't affect his faith though. In that respect, he was easier for me to deal with because he was quite prepared to say: 'well that's nonsense'.

Q: At the end of the book, you suggest that the journey you undertook led you to gain more respect for people of faith than for hard-line atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Why do you think it influenced you in this way?
A: Well, I have neither more nor less respect for atheists than for people who believe - they're people, and believing doesn't make you a good person, and not believing doesn't make you a bad person. What I am intolerant of is the kind of intolerance that hard-line atheists such as Dawkins have shown. They not only say it's impossible to prove the existence of God, a proposition with which I agree, but they go much further and say: not only does God not exist, but people who believe in God are really rather stupid and deluded. And that is something with which I do not agree. So in the same way that I have no time for fundamentalist believers, who do appalling things in the name of their faith, so I have no time for fundamentalist atheists who dismiss people who do believe.

Q: Clearly you yourself remain a doubter?
A: Yes, and I explain my reasons in detail in the book. There are more doubters out there than there are either believers or atheists, and it seems to me to be the logical position to hold - unless something happens to you that gives you faith, or creates a spark in you or whatever it happens to be, then that seems to be the only position. But then I can only speak for myself in matters of faith.

Q: You write about a more aggressive approach today from militant believers and from militant atheists. It seems they are growing today at the expense of more liberal elements. Why is this, do you think?
A: I don't think they are necessarily more militant today - you can hardly be more so than the Crusaders. But in the last few years we have been reminded of what the worst kind of fundamentalist beliefs can do, in this case militant Islam, which is frightening for all of us. We have also seen a rise in publicly-stated, for want of a better term, militant atheism. Why that has happened, I am not absolutely sure. I think it may be as prosaic as when somebody writes a book, as Dawkins did, and it strikes a chord as it so clearly did with so many people, you then get a raft of books along the same lines, and that tends to dominate the debate, to stir it up. And I suppose that's what's happened. Whether there is a direct connection between that and people's worries about fundamentalist religion, as exemplified by militant Islamists, one can't be sure. I suspect there probably is.

Q: Is it odd that the liberal religious position, which would seem to be the more rational, is the one that's on the decline?
A: Well, I don't know why it should be any more rational than the liberal atheist postion&ellip;

Q: Yes, but perhaps they are both on the decline?
A: No, don't think so. To the extent that one can research these things, certainly the survey I had done, by a very respectable organisation, showed quite the opposite of that. Most people wouldn't describe themselves as practising Christians any more than most people would describe themselves as practising atheists, as its were. Most people are somewhere in the middle, they really don't know which way to go. They believe in something vaguely, but they don't believe in a monotheistic God. I wouldn't say they are on the decline, quite the contrary.

Q: You suggest that faith in God might provide stronger sustenance for the soul in distress than grief counsellors, psychotherapists or pills. Does this surprise you?
A: No it doesn't surprise me at all. I mean we look for comfort wherever we can find it in times of great grief. And many people find it in God, in their belief, and I have absolutely no problem with that. I wish them well.

Q: You write about people who in our present day sacrificed themselves to save others, who 'took a conscious choice to follow their conscience rather than the call of self-preservation'. You write: 'we sense a spiritual element in that nobility, something beyond our conscious understanding'. Is that the core of why you can't be an atheist?
A: Yes, it's certainly one of the reasons. I can't explain to my own satisfaction why it is that some people would behave in an entirely altruistic way, and Dawkins - although he is a great biologist and Darwinian expert - is very unconvincing on this. I found his explanation, couched in the context of Darwin, extremely thin.

Q: I want to quote a Unitarian minister who attempted to answer the questions you put to the three mainstream religious leaders - to answer them from a non-orthodox perspective. The minister (the Rev Feargus O'Connor of Golders Green Unitarians) said his own conception of God 'is of a Universal Mind, the ultimate First Cause, responsible for the existence and sustaining of the entire Cosmos'. The Minister quotes an American theologian as saying: 'God is seen not only as the agent that started the Big Bang, but rather as the continuing creator who is the source and power of life and love in the Universe'. John, would you find this approach to God more convincing? A: Not really … but each to his own. Obviously it does work for him, and he's thought it through, and it's intelligent stuff. That's good, and I wish him well, but it doesn't work for me.