Free Spirit Writers
More about the
Crucifixion (Cruci-fiction?)
In a reply to all ten of
the letters in a previous week's Bridlington Free Press,I wrote this which
the BFP published:
In response to
the letters in favour of the Passion Play to be staged on Easter
Saturday, I have a few thank-yous.
First to thanks
Father Grant and others for visiting my mother. Thanks to everyone
involved in helping others, especially the Kingfisher Trust. Your work
is excellent. But could you not do good without faith? I can.
More thanks to
Father Grant for his paragraph:
Admittedly, only
Faith can give us the assurance that Jesus is truly the Son of God and
rose from the dead on the first Easter Sunday.
So there we have
it. A Catholic priest admits that faith is necessary. That rather
destroys all the arguments that it is all true.
While declaring
myself an atheist, I'm still not 100% certain that God doesn't exist.
Some of the faithful, however, have the arrogance to claim that they know not
only which religion is the right one, but also which branch of that
religion. I am quite sure each Christian church in Bridlington is
convinced that theirs is the one true church.
If I can be
invited to join the procession by believers in the hope I'll be
converted, then I invite them to read Christopher Hitchens or Richard
Dawkins, visit
www.whywontgodhealamputees.com
or the website of The English Atheist, or the British Humanist
Association.
Speaking out
against religion is difficult. We've had it drummed into us since we
were sucklings. No wonder it took me 60 years to realise it was a waste
of time.
I did receive a
telephone call from a lady who had sought my number to tell me she agreed
wholeheartedly with my view. She had been educated in a convent. She stuck
by her faith for years, until the disaster in Biafra occurred. She then
worked out that if God was there, he ignored the plight of those innocent
children. If he was there, she thought, she didn't want to be associated
with him. So she left the faith. The light of reason had shone upon her and
she realised that faith and prayers don't work.
Mike
Wilson