In the Beginning there was nothing - which exploded.

  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