REVIEW - THAT OLD DEVIL CALLED GOD AGAIN

Professor Neal Robinson has been the professor of Islamic Studies in Wales, Belgium, South Korea, Australia, Kazakhstan and Russia. He writes: 

The crude self-hating proselytising faith that you so rightly reject is alive and well and I often hear it pedalled by street preachers in city centres.

Evolutionary biologists disagree as to why religion exists. However, I am convinced by the arguments (well put by Wilson in Darwin’s Cathedral) for thinking that it produces group cohesion and thereby increases a society’s chances of survival. The problem is that it does this by demonising outsiders.

This is something that we must now work to overcome. It will be very difficult.

All religious traditions revere a supernatural being or ancestor who ‘knows’ people’s thoughts. Statements such as ‘to whom all hearts are open, all desires known…’ merely reinforce the child’s sense of being watched.

Most young adults feel the unconscious need to identify with a heroic figure, in order to cope with their own sense of mortality.

I think the best we can do is to combat exclusivism.

Of course the Bible is toxic in the hands of fundamentalists.

I have no time for clerics who disguise their muddled thoughts by appealing to mystery.

I share your concern to reach out to those who cannot identify with tradition.

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