Personal experience and the Bible… Well I’ll address the easy one first. The Bible is a collection of stories, written by a bunch of people over hundreds of years. It’s undoubtedly a fascinating book, but one to seek truth in? I don’t think so. It’s a book which has been cynically manipulated over the centuries in order to make it say what those in power wanted it to say – books have been added and removed time and time again, meanings twisted and new definitions sought.

You mentioned the flat earth, and how it’s been superseded by human knowledge. Well the Bible (indeed any religious text) was written in less enlightened times, partially as a response to a complex and – at the time – unfathomable world. People didn’t know where they came from, so creation myths were concocted and people turned to those. The bible provided explanations for the unexplainable. In modern times, we can explain a lot. We’re working on explaining a lot more, and for the stuff that we just don’t know, we generally acknowledge the usefulness of saying so. What’s the role of the Bible, other than holding up that progress?

Personal experience is a really interesting thing. I don’t wish to belittle whatever your own example is, but most personal experiences people have told me in the past have been, well, bullshit. I remember someone trying to tell me about how someone from their church miraculously recovered from cancer, after being told they would die. My friend told me that it must have been God – I’m sure that the person’s doctors and whoever were really pleased to hear that all their work was apparently in vain!

The human brain likes reason. It likes to attach significance to things, to look for the deeper meaning. It’s one of the reasons we’ve come so far – we can use that reason to make discoveries and progress our development. But sometimes things don’t happen for a reason; they just happen, or at least the reason isn’t immediately obvious. To attach significance to those events is just silly, really.

I notice you didn’t really respond to the first point I made (which to my mind is the more fundamental one). What question must one ask, for the answer to be god?

I actually enjoy religious debates. But then I enjoy arguing about stuff generally, so maybe I’m just a big freak.

The discussion my mother and I were having today was on the subject of religions and Gods today and (I don’t know enough about this to say once and for all what I think but…) – it’s obvious to me that I believe in the same god as religious Jews and Muslims do, just obviosuly we take a different angle on the things that have happened in the Bible such that for me the Messiah has come and for Jews and Muslims he hasn’t, and for Muslims Mohammed is a lot more important than he is for other Abramaics. Furthermore I would make the argument, like a lot of Hindus, that actually we *all* believe in one God – Hindus believe that there is one god, and Ganesha, Shiva, all of those, are all just manifestations of one or other aspect of that god. And they tend to go on to say that that one God in which they believe is the same as the god in which I believe, and I have to say I agree with them. So yes, we celebrate our religions in different ways, we have different tenets and different saints and prophets on earth in whom we put our trust, but the backbone of our faith is still there – that there is a God and if we are good there is an afterlife to go along with that. Whether that’s filled with angels and trumpets or 72 virgins depends on your point of view.

I would argue that my faith then is the ‘truest’ way of being and being faithful, but I don’t think that other faiths believe in Gods that do not exist, far from it. Where I think they are wrong is in how they apply that faith in god to the world such that they do things which I do not believe are moral – the idea that it’s wrong to be gay, or that adulterous women should be stoned to death.

That said I’m starting to suspect that hte minister in my church also believes that being a practicing homosexual is wrong. Which is partly why as of next week I shall be going to the church the *other* end of my street instead!

PS, Fi, you are amazing. That is an amazing *thing*. Thank you. I will now remove my head from the wall and drain the lemon juice from my eyes…

In which case, I wonder what question one has to ask, for the answer to be “there must be a God”. We have a good scientific explanation for how we came to be, pretty much going back to the Big Bang. The only question then is, “well what caused the Big Bang?”. If we say “a God must have done it”, then that raises lots more questions than it answers – why? Who is this God? Where did it come from? and so on. It ultimately leaves us saying “well we don’t know”. Why not just say “we don’t know” to the first question – what caused the Big Bang? – and leave it at that, rather than make wild assumptions?

Yet another interesting question – if we say there’s a god, then why just the one? You say “it’s all about saying look, here is this one God, who at the time was completely different from the gods of other religions”, but what exactly is the rationale for saying that? Essentially, why do you reject other gods?

I’m not so sure God (as depicted in the Old Testament, at least) is really that different from some of his contemporary gods. He’s still very human, just singularly rather than plurally, and he has a personal name.

He’s jealous, and admits as much. He wipes out people who don’t live up to his expectations. He sets bizarre conditions on people e.g. don’t look back or you will be turned into a pillar of salt, which recalls the condition set by Hades that Orpheus not look back at Eurydice. He sets up a bizarre charade to test Abraham’s faith, despite the fact that if he was omniscient, he would already know how faithful Abraham was.

I’d also say he’s pretty much reneged on his promises to the Jews. I don’t think it’s ever sucked quite so much to be a chosen people.

I’m always wary about arguing about these sorts of things because believing in God or not is something that, in the absence of proof, you have to take axiomatically, and no amount of rhetoric is ever going to cause someone to discard one of their axioms, so it’s essentially a flawed endeavour.

I would however like to mention that Jesus was really very much better, and was probably one of the foremost moral philosophers of his age. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” is literally genius, and a rule that probably anybody should follow.