Skip to main content

Curse Evolution

On 17th October 2006, my Mum passed away after a year-long battle with cancer.

Now I know all Mums are special, but I think everyone who knew mine would agree that she was more special than most. Mum had a lot of friends, and at her funeral, the chapel was packed. She lived an amazing life, and influenced a lot of people. She ran a youth group, set up and ran an advice and counselling centre, and gave hospitality to dozens of people from all around the world.

In her late forties, Mum learned to drive; not to go shopping at Tesco, but to join my Dad on an expedition in east Africa. For three weeks they drove around together, camping out in some of the wildest places on earth. In her sixties, they went pony trekking in the Himalayas. In her seventies, Mum learned to use a computer and email. That was the sot of person she was. She was a kind, gentle, courageous and remarkable woman who lived life to the full.

Which started me thinking.

If there really is no God...

If there is no afterlife...

And if death is the end, and life has no purpose...

Then what a horrendous, evil and baseless thing this evolution is - if that is what has given us birth. For it created sentient beings and endowed them with life; surrounded them with beauty, love, excitement, wonder; gave them the ability to understand and appreciate all those things and more; only to snatch that life away from them, without hope of redemption.

What sort of sadistic cruelty is that? What kind of torment? Why do atheists waste their breath railing against God, in whom they claim not to believe? Curse evolution! May it rot in hell! May it's name be covered in shame and disgrace, and may no-one speak of it again! It is the unkindest, cruellest, most worthless and wretched thing ever to blot the face of the earth.

If...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robbing The Poor To Feed The Rich?

Now that cuts in spending seem to be on the agenda of all the main political parties, the big questions still to be answered are: how much? And where will the axe fall? According to a recent poll by Ipsos MORI, published by the BBC ( http://bit.ly/d168R ), the most popular candidate with most people is overseas aid. That’s not really surprising. It’s understandable that during severe financial crisis most people want our government to look after our own affairs first. Charity, as the saying goes, begins at home. But is it really right for the poorest nations of the world to be penalised for a crisis that was brought on by the rich? The developing world already spends $1.3 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants (Source: World Centric, http://bit.ly/b5C7f ). Every day at least $100 million flows from the poor of the world into the pockets of the rich. Existing problems like drought and famine will not go away just because there is a worldwide recession, and the poor are mo...
2 comments
Read more

The Shadow Of The Crusades

Like many others I watched this week's handover ceremony in Basra with some relief. Hopefully it's the beginning of the end of a venture that most people in the UK would rather forget. But relief gave way to frustration as I listened to the closing prayers, and realised with fresh understanding why the Muslim world still cannot forgive or forget the Crusades. It's one thing to have chaplains provide support and comfort to ordinary soldiers, who after all are only doing the job that their political masters have dictated. But against the backdrop of our history, it seems insanely foolish to include a religious element in a televised event associated with such a contentious war as the one in Iraq. The marriage of religion and state has never born palatable fruit. When clerics have political power, the wrong kind of people become clerics, for the wrong reasons. That much is clear from European history, and is still apparent in parts of the Islamic world today. Almost all religi...
Post a Comment
Read more

A God Who Reaches Out

Years ago I was guest speaker at a conference of a group of churches in a remote part of SW Uganda. One of the delegates I met there had walked for a couple of days to attend, sleeping out in the bush under the stars, and drinking water from whatever muddy pool he came across. I've been back several times since, but I've never forgotten the remarkable dedication of that one individual. It's been widely acknowledged, and I've written here previously, that the universe seems to speak to us of an architect - a creator of everything we see around us. If that's true, it would require similar dedication on their part for us to have any chance of knowing and understanding them. The innumerable religions and concepts of God that we find around the world today, not to mention throughout history, and the many other theories of origins, are testimony to this. Left to ourselves we are incapable of figuring out definitively, to everyone's agreement and satisfaction, who or w...
Post a Comment
Read more