Good Without God – A Letter To The Faithful
Religion does not bring meaning
Life is insignificant – in the span of the universe. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to come to the conclusion that the convictions held by Creationists, as barking mad and as scientifically untenable as they are, make more sense than those held by the majority of moderate Christians. Why? Well, let’s just take a couple of points that we know to be the facts (unless you’re a Creationist, of course). The earth is around 5 or 6 billion years old. Dinosaurs roamed upon it for c. 65 million years. By comparison, homo sapiens has only been knocking around for roughly 200,000 years. Why on earth do we think we’re so important as to be made in the Creator’s image? From a Christian point of view, we then have to accept the bizarre notion that humans had to wait 198,000 years for the Messiah to pop up in a spectacularly unpromising part of the world. For an all-powerful being, God does make things difficult, doesn’t He?
For me, religion does not bring meaning, for it fails to explain anything even remotely to my satisfaction. As Dawkins said in his letter to his daughter, tradition, authority and revelation are three very poor reasons for accepting something to be true. For me, inventing a supernatural significance in order to give myself a sense of purpose is an empty and pointless exercise.