In the Beginning there was nothing – which
exploded
My Blog: ‘Where does my tax pound go?’ has generated a lot
of comments, thank you for joining in the big bang conversation. I note also that some of the ‘followers of
the way’ are getting a little excited by my response about the need to have the
right and freedom to talk in school about creation and actually to teach creation.
I am not, at this stage, concerned with the thought of
evolution or not, but want to make you aware that there are many people who
want to silence the those who are followers of the way; who believe that Jesus
Christ rose from the dead; who believe that there is a ‘God who is there’ who is
the source of all things; who created the universe and the earth, time and
space outside of himself.
Those who oppose the teaching of creation are not just
advocating ‘you must teach evolution’; what they are advocating is that you
must not say that there is a God who created the world, however he did it. God must be kept in the private place of
religion so called, or special dedicated buildings, or maybe we will let you
talk about that ‘myth’ in the confines of religious instruction, though we
rather you didn’t!
I listened to humanists discussing the subject on TV last
Sunday morning they were vehemently opposed to bishops in the house of Lords, I
might even agree with them there, but when pushed they slipped back into the
usual rhetoric, ‘why should we allow schools to talk about God or faith, these
myths belong outside of those areas and should be stopped as well as bishops in
the House of Lords.’ It isn’t evolution
that they want taught, it’s God and the fact of the Lordship of Christ, and the
fact of the resurrection that they do not
want taught, or talked about in the public arena. That has always been so, there has always
been the pressure to keep your beliefs private, but that is not the way of
it. We are commanded as followers of the
way to share the good news that God is a personal God, He is there, He is not
far away and a way of reconciliation has been made to Him via Christ and that
all goes back to the beginning, that likeness that we have to the God who is
there, that ultimate responsibility / answerability we have to Him and that we
actually, as humankind, rebelled against Him. That is a public place announcement and must
remain so!
Let’s go back to the beginning shall we. Which beginning? The humanist theory of
beginnings is that there was nothing, then there was a big bang and after
billions of years you have you and me, and a few billion others. However because the bang ‘just happened’ we
need to understand that there is no meaning to it, as many of the people I am talking about,
when pushed will of course be honest enough to tell you. There is no meaning in love, justice, and
morality. When you are dead you are dead
there is nothing else to it, no purpose, in life it’s all just a really bad
joke. Of course you can enjoy life while
it’s there but don’t think that any of it means anything, Love is just the
firing of neurons in the brain, a chemical reaction with perhaps a physical
outcome. It is about pointless survival,
there is nothing there and no reason for it, a great big accident of nature,
whatever nature is. God is dead, in fact
God never existed, man is also dead. If
we think about it for a moment we will move into total despair at such a pointless,
meaningless existence.
Rather I would want our students and everyone else to know, the
fact that we do have meaning, because we were created in the image of a
personal and loving God. That gives us
meaning, that actually is true truth.
That is why we need to respect each other, that is why we can have
meaningful love, both to other humans and to God. That is why love can be reciprocal, that is
why life, the universe, me, and you have real meaning and value.
My old friend George Canty used to say to me, ‘why do
people think that they can have faith in faith that is so irrational.’ If you are in despair, without faith you
might have faith in faith, or drugs or alcohol or sex without love, or take a
leap into any nonsense. Rather George
would say, ‘put your faith in God that is something rational, true, checkable,
reasonable, and verifiable.’ Being a
follower of the way is not illogical or irrational it is truthful and sensible
and rational.
There are those who would say science has replaced the need
for God; interestingly Julius Robert
Oppenheimer, a scientist, theoretical physicist and professor of physics, who
was not a Christian but
acknowledged Christianity was needed for modern science to exist for the simple
reason that Christians create a climate of thought which put men in a position
to investigate the form of the universe in which he exists.
Many
early scientists had the view that a reasonable God had made a reasonable
universe, and having created reasonable man we could scientifically examine
this reasonable universe and discover how it works. The problem for the modern humanistic is that
all the time they try to examine the irrationality of the universe and the
accident that we are here they discover that they are examining a rational
world.
Going
back to that TV programme the other Sunday morning, I noted what they said
about bishops in the House of Lords, the humanists said, ‘we don’t want them
there,’ and as I have said, maybe I agree.
Then they said we don’t mind people being Christians, but they must not
impose their ideas on others, particularly children in schools, even though
they feel it is perfectly okay for them to impose their ideas wherever they
like. I know their answer to that
criticism, as I have discussed it with them, they say, ‘ah but what we are
teaching is true!’ As if they have the monopoly on truth!
Well
I don’t want what I have discovered to be pushed into some private corner,
limited to a religious education class, or a special building. And what I have also discovered is truth;
it’s a person!
Adrian’s Blog
W 1110
Edited by Technicolour text
Thanks to Mal Kelly for the
title
