Bogosity

I’m sitting in a lecture theater waiting for our video link to Alister McGrath (who is upstairs in a similarly packed room) to sort itself out (the techs are doing that thing where they run from room to room and twiddle things).

Alister is talking about The Bankruptcy of Atheism and his book The Dawkins Delusion which is obviously a rebuttal of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion.

I’m coming into this lecture reflecting on my weekend when I attended my nephew’s dedication and birthday party at my sister’s church. I tried to keep an open mind as the worship service started but after 2 hours of being told how I should be feeling, what I should be thinking and what I should be believing in a forceful way with repetitive brain banging and emotion wrenching music, I was feeling pretty pissed off. I’m sorry but that is not my idea of worship. If God had wanted to say anything during that service, he wouldn’t have been able to get a word in. (Of course if God was of the nature that they seem to think he is, then He (and he is definitely a man) would just lift the roof off and shout in – I was kind of hoping he would but sadly he stayed in his cloud)

But the thing that made me most sad was when my nephew opened his present and his face fell as he declared to me: this present is evil. The present was one of those Bionicle alien robots. The reason I felt sad about this is because I think about my own childhood which was filled with similar superstitions. As I grew up, instead of growing out of believing in monsters under the bed, my faith taught me that the monsters are everywhere: lurking in my friends, toys and even my own thoughts. I’m sad that my nephew might be growing up in this painful way that puts constant barriers between himself and the world. I hope that he will not have the same fear of evil as I did when I was growing up. I don’t know if that is how he will grow up – he seems to be a resilient kid with a positive outlook on things so maybe I am just being sad about myself.