In his delightful book, \u2018The God Delusion\u2019, Richard Dawkins rails against unquestioning faith.
In his atheist world, everything must be evidence based, able to stand up to rigorous, scientific investigation. The \u2018problem\u2019 with religious people, people of faith, is that they just don\u2019t think \u2013 that is, according to Dawkins. Dear Mr Dawkins, may I introduce you to Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite all his friends saying that they had seen the risen Jesus, Thomas was adamant:
“Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it.” This is not \u2018Doubting Thomas\u2019; this is \u2018Independent Thinking Thomas\u2019. Rather than get caught up in the group hysteria, Thomas wanted evidence, he wanted to think it through for himself. He was a disciple of Brian, whose central message is: \u2018You\u2019re all individuals. You\u2019re all different. You\u2019ve got to work it out for yourselves.\u2019 So Thomas was prepared to question. And hence tradition has labelled him \u2018Doubter\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But doubt is not necessarily negative. Doubt is not a failing, not a falling away from faith. In order to doubt, you have to have some form of belief. Doubt can lead to creatively rethinking, revaluating what we think and believe. Faith is the resolution of doubt. The problem for Richard Dawkins to resolve is that people of faith ask a lot of questions, have often struggled with their faith, have been through periods of doubt, and are, as a result, more sure of their faith.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, from me, a big thank you to Richard Dawkins for \u2018The God Delusion\u2019. Having read it, I am all the more sure of what I hope for and more certain of what I do not see.
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!
ALLELUIA, CHRIST IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED, ALLELUIA!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rev Phil<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In his delightful book, \u2018The God Delusion\u2019, Richard Dawkins rails against unquestioning faith.In his atheist world, everything must be evidence based, able to stand up to rigorous, scientific investigation. The \u2018problem\u2019 with religious people, people of faith, is that they just don\u2019t think \u2013 that is, according to Dawkins. Dear Mr Dawkins, may I introduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpetersbromyard.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}