BIASED TO BELIEVE

by | 2017 Dec,1 | Pastor's Desk

Why do we believe what we believe? Richard Dawkins has stated that belief in God is due entirely to having been raised by religious parents. Of course, this may be true for some or even for most, but it is a far too sweeping over-generalisation to be true for everybody. One wonders of course whether atheists such as Dawkins recognise that their own upbringing may have led them to believe atheism is true? After all, atheism is not the lack of belief in something, but is rather a belief system itself. For example, Jean-Paul Sartre was a French Philosopher who fought with the French Resistance during World War 2 and ended up becoming a prisoner of war. After the War he became an outspoken atheist. One wonders how much influence on his belief in atheism the horrors of war which he witnessed (and experienced) played in shaping his atheism? It seems we may all be biased in one way or another about what we will be more inclined to believe.

Who Can We Blame?

Who Can We Blame?

by | 2016 Apr,29 | Pastor's Desk

Blame doesn’t really solve anything. Yet most of us seem content to blame rather than solve. When David Attenborough was asked by Charles Woolley, during last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” interview, why he didn’t believe there was a God, Mr. Attenborough didn’t give a reason, rather, he raised an objection. (There is a world of difference in proving that something does not exist, and, objecting to its existence!) His objection was to blame God for human suffering. He said, “I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs.” How could there be a good all-powerful God who would create such a barbaric scenario, reasons Mr Attenborough.