Last year I debated Christianity with a Church of England group and they acknowledged how brave I was to do that. A wonderful meal was provided, within a garden setting, prior to the discussion. It all went fine until I found that it was so dark I could no longer read my notes. I suppose it could be said that the debate ended 2-2; I was satisfied with that because it was about five against one on away soil! The Christians were courteous but not impressed with my view, as far as I could tell. I think it important to say at the outset that if anyone is offended by this post they should not be. It is still a free country with free speech. I have not been abusive nor have I shown any disrespect. It is a genuine memory, and who knows, it might spark some life into the site.
The Notes
I recently listened to Professor Richard Dawkins exploring religion with the Bishop of Oxford and it was such a friendly and intelligent meeting of minds. They clearly like and respect each other. That has inspired me to make a short personal statement regarding religion to friends that I equally like and respect!
There might or might not be a Christian God, however there remains so much that science needs to investigate regarding our world and it is quite likely that humanity will never fully understand the origin of our planet. Having said all that, I put my money on there being no Christian God.
If there is a Christian God she/he/it must be hugely more intelligent than us and if that is the case - who made God and who made the God that made God? The more I think about that the more I find it difficult to have faith. Maybe there was a Christian God - but he is now dead.
The evidence for a God that frequently responds to Christian prayer is thin. The Christian Church seems to acknowledge that problem by saying something like ‘the response might be later, when you least expect it’ I find that vague, unsatisfactory and mainly untested.
The world is in an almighty mess – the majority of people, including children, are in dire poverty – much of it life threatening and much of it not their fault. The Christian God’s silence regarding his creation is woeful. A recent retort to that amounted to ‘concentrate on our country when analyzing God’s creation!’ I will not do that because it would distort an accurate world view.
If God created the world it took him ages to arrange for human existence to begin; before that, for millions and millions of years, it was blood, tooth and claw for animals – what a wretched and terrifying situation for them! In fact for most creatures on the planet that remains the same. Some Christians explain the delay in introducing humans by saying that it was a requirement to enable humanity to get started. I think it relegates the importance of humans, just a bit. We are new kids on a block that was built ages ago.
Why does the Christian God put so much emphasis on faith? We have discussed this [I said] several times but it is so important to me. I believe that faith is urged despite a dearth of tested and reliable evidence. Some Christians seem to think that having strong faith is a wonderful virtue in itself; it isn’t if it is achieved by creating lots of backburners for so many awkward questions that threaten their beliefs.
I get the impression that some Christians simply cannot understand when people, who have made a lot of effort, cannot accept Christianity. I find that lack of understanding remarkable.
Much of my professional experience has required reading around a subject or problem, testing the evidence, analyzing, making a decision and having my findings examined by peer groups - yet with the Christian religion we are actively encouraged to stick to the bible, sermons, and guidance from Lay Readers. With the greatest of respect that is not fully reading around the subject.
I could continue but suffice to say there are far too many Christian back burners that dump rigorous intelligent enquiry.
WB
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment