Home Page

On publication day I was told that my letter was included in the paper. "What now?" I wondered.

Before the end of the week, about a dozen people had phoned/emailed/spoken their agreement with my sentiments. No-one had said anything against it. I hardly thought I'd have bricks through the window of course, but I knew someone out there would disagree with me.

The Bridlington Free Press of the 18th March had a full page of them. A full page of letters telling me stuff I already knew - about Jesus coming to save us all, and about how the churches did good work in the town, particularly the Kingfisher Trust's work with the homeless here.

I was invited to take part in the Alpha Course at Christ Church and to join someone else in the procession at Easter weekend.

Father Grant of the Catholic Church reminded me that someone from the church had visited my mother while she was in Belgrave Court for a couple of years. I agree, either he or the deacon did visit her. What he failed to say was that on every occasion when my wife and I were visiting my mother and the church person turned up, we allowed him to see my mother immediately.

He also didn't point out that of the packed Catholic Church at Mum's funeral, only a handful of those people had actually visited the home. Even a lady Mum considered one of her best friends was unable to make more than a handful of visits.

And what sort of comfort was Mum offered? That soon she'd be in the arms of the Almighty? That she'd move to a land of milk and honey to join my father at last?

How can they say that to an indefensible, 92-year-old, nearly blind and frail old lady?

During her life, my mother and father (by the way, his family were guarantors of the Catholic Church on Victoria Road back in 1893/4) followed the teachings of the church as best they could. She had four children, and three of those know they were not wanted. But contraception was forbidden and accidents happen. Between their wedding day and their first born 134 days elapsed (normal gestation 270). So am I some sort of miracle?

Now I think about it, those who re-enacted the crucifixion could have re-enacted the feeding of the 5,000 instead. How nice it would have been to have all the town's schoolchildren each with a packed lunch sitting in a park or on the beach sharing their food with others. That would have shown a great lesson - share your benefits with others. They would have learned how to smile at someone, how to be generous, how to be thankful, how to behave like human beings.

I dread to think of how children responded to the crucifixion. A child's idea of Jesus is the little baby in the manger. They would be incapable of making the huge leap of understanding from that image to the awesome picture of him being nailed to a cross. It's enough to put kids off religion for ever!

Hey! Maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Addition: Sunday, 21st March

I looked at the Bridlington Free Press website this afternoon to see if my letter was on there. I couldn't find last week's page, probably because it was removed once a new issue of the paper came out.

But, all the letters which appeared in the paper were there on the website. I read them through again but remained unconvinced that I should join the procession on Easter Saturday; nor was I encouraged to visit the Alpha Course.

What I was encouraged by - enormously - were the figures on "Today's Vote" which appeared on the page of crucifixion letters.

"Today's Vote": Do you think Bridlington should hold a re-enactment of the crucifixion on south beach at an Easter Passion Play?

Yes  36%     No  64%    (These figures at 4pm Sunday)

Yes  59%     No  41%    (These figures at 9.30am Monday)

Yes  63%    No  37%    (These figures at 2pm Monday)

In response to all my critics, I offer this challenge: Take a bottle of bleach, drink it, then pray and wait to see what happens. Without medical and scientific intervention, a horrible death would result. No amount of prayer would have helped.

I guarantee not one person would drink the bleach. I guarantee the Pope himself - and the Archbishop of Canterbury or any imam or rabbi - knows that would be an act of the highest stupidity.

So even the most ardent believer knows - deep down - that their prayers would never be answered on this occasion.

Similarly, not once in the history of the world, has been there a scientifically recorded example of a missing limb regrowing on a human body, despite individual, family, community, national or international prayers.

Those two examples alone make me question any religion.

Here's another couple of questions for believers:

Why did lightning strike York Minister? In fact, why do churches have lightning conductors? And why does the Pope have an armoured-glassed Popemobile? Surely he doesn't really believe that God would not intervene on his behalf if a terrorist fired a gun at him.

Ask yourself why the Pope kisses the ground when he leaves an aircraft. Has he been sitting with his fingers crossed, or telling his rosary, murmuring "Dear God, please let the plane land safely." And when it does, he's so relieved that he kisses the ground. But it would not be the prayers that brought him down safely. It's the result of science, technology and the brains of men knowing what they are doing.

Take care folks, and as Pat Condell says at the end of every one of his controversial videos: "Peace!"

Have a look at http://englishatheist.org. Some interesting stuff on there.

Mike Wilson