'Religion and beyond' conversation is a sell-out

TONIGHT'S conversation on the theme of 'A World Without Religion' at the Just Festival has sold out - but we will seek to make reports and comment available to all who cannot make it.

This will include live tweeting and blogging, if possible. The speakers at 6pm this evening are Professor Richard Holloway (former Bishop of Edinburgh, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and author of Leaving Alexandria), Tim Maguire from the Humanist Society Scotland, and Sanderson Jones of the Atheist Church initiative. The chair will be the Rev Professor Jolyon Mitchell from the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Theology and Public Issues.

Imagine there is no religion, the panellists will ask. Would the world be "as one", as John Lennon's famous song imagined, or would we in fact remain divided? Is "a world without religion" a realistic possibility or a totalising dream?

What alternatives do humanism, atheism or agnosticism offer? Can a happy medium between religious polities and secular states be found? Would "no religion" bring chaos and a moral deficit once structures and strictures shared by faith groups are no longer predominant?

 Read more about the discussion here, on Ekklesia and on social media as it develops.

And remember, there are plenty of other enlivening conversations, some with a religious dimension and some not so much, over the next four weeks at the ground-breaking Just Festival.