“I have no need of redemption.” someone bluntly told me recently.
Well, that’s exactly what I used to say. Now I can say it with some conviction because my redemption is a fact, though I cannot prove this to anyone. But there is some evidence.
My angry correspondent remarked “Unlike your god, there is a wealth of evidence from a variety of sources that you exist. Even in the absence of thought about you, you continue to be.”
I am flattered.
However denial of our Creator’s existence is common, yet he continues to exist and to sustain us all and the whole universe despite my correspondent’s affirmation of blind faith in his absence. Dismissal of belief in God won’t make him go away. You may not believe in him but he believes in you.
My trust in God is based on evidence. And I think there is a wealth of evidence from a variety of sources that God exists.
You want evidence? Writers like Richard Dawkins (are you one of his disciples?) consistently refuse to examine the available evidence which is freely available to anyone who wants it. I think there is also ample evidence that followers of Dawkins and the so-called ‘new atheists’ put their faith in their remarks without properly examining their arguments, a sort of religious faith which like a lot of other religious faith is not based on demonstrable evidence. It is “blind faith”.
The whole point of my post I made about a month ago was to reject “blind faith” and call for faith based on evidence and I gave several examples of this in everyday life. More. I believe the sun will “set” tonight and “rise” in the morning. Now this is not proof, note, but it is evidence. I cannot prove the sun will “move” in this way. I cannot prove that my wife truly loves me but I have really good evidence that she does.
There is no point in going to my dentist if there is no good evidence that he is competent. There is no point in setting out on a journey to a certain place if I don’t have evidence that it exists.
So my point is belief in the absence of evidence is not the sort of faith demanded by the Hebrew prophets and sages. True faith cannot ‘allow me to adopt a set of beliefs that make absolutely no sense.’ Neither does any ‘level of piety that I might exhibit in believing something, count for anything.’ I cannot pull myself up with my bootstraps (that’s why I needed redemption) yet that’s what at least some atheists think how the universe began! Blind faith. Come on.
Let’s think about this. You may judge me of denying reality. But do you know all there is to know about everything that is reality? If you think you do then you are claiming omniscience. Blind faith again. If you don’t then you should not be so sure of your presuppositions. Is it not possible that you are mistaken and I have discovered something that has changed my world view radically?
When we cannot face up to reality we take a leap of faith in the dark into some metaphysical idea. Blind faith. Now that is ‘an abdication from reality, an act of self hypnosis, a cowardly cop-out.’ But reality presents us with many questions.
Can one believe in love without evidence? Is love among human beings provable? Where does ‘love’ come from? Is it real, or just some chemical reaction in our brains? Why is there anything at all and not just nothing? Why do we exist? Why is there this particular set of natural laws and not some other? What is the nature of reality and how can it be measured? Why does our world provide just the right sets of conditions (numbering dozens of fine-tuning conditions) for life? Where did all this come from? Where did the minute bacterial flagellum come from –with millions of these tiny machines in every cell in your body?
Can my reader answer these questions? Well I think I can. And it’s called reality with the evidence that is available. Exciting stuff.
Ian Thomson 