Sixth Form Assembly Tue 15 Nov 2011
There is an elephant in the room. It’s so huge and so obvious – yet no one comments on it and everyone pretends it’s not there. Because of its huge size, we have to squeeze past it, we have to make adjustments. Everything we do is affected by its presence. This particular elephant is important and invisible, and he has a name. His name is God.
This phrase “the elephant in the room” is used sometimes when people ignore the obvious, when the really obvious matter ought to be considered because it is most important. But if the obvious issue is difficult, it is often easier for most to ignore it and, on the whole, people muddle through life without thinking too much about God. Let’s face it, there’s much more interesting things to talk about, what with Strictly on tv, the latest iPad and the Christmas release of computer games, and wasn’t the football interesting at the weekend; one team scored one goal and so did the other. We spend most of our time avoiding talking about the elephant in the room.
Of course, religious issues are important in world politics. Let’s take Al Khaida. At the root of addressing the problem of suicide bombers, we need to speak about and understand what jihad means to Muslims. Another example: If the Israeli conflict is to be resolved, a Jewish understanding of promised land needs to be discussed.
And religious issues and values are important personally. You are at a stage in life when you are beginning to take more and more decisions for yourself. You are beginning to take responsibility for decisions like the way you drive. You might kill a pedestrian because of a poor decision; you might kill your friend as a passenger in your car. You are deciding what is right and wrong all the time. You are making choices about your future. You are making decisions about your sexuality and how it is expressed. You are making decisions about how you use time and money, how much you give yourself and how much you give to others. So for two reasons, the geopolitical and the personal, it is important for you to be able to speak about God and values that arise from belief.
One way or another, each of us has to find values upon which we take these decisions. On the whole, we develop a shared understanding of these boundaries, these chosen limits to our behaviour, but by and large, we have lost the vocabulary to talk about the values that lead to these limits. Generally, we just muddle through, not knowing clear reasons for why we believe what we believe. And this is the point of why I am speaking to you. I want to help you begin to explore and find a vocabulary to speak about religious issues. To do that, I am going to tell you a little about why I believe in God.
How is it that a scientist who thinks evidence is important also holds a faith? How did I as a teenager move from unbelief towards belief? I guess as a starting point I wasn’t unnerved about thinking for myself. I have never been a “follow the leader” sort of person, doing what someone says because of that person’s influence or authority. I read what many people thought – and then made up my own mind. Another key influence was that, as a teenager, I fell in love – and that experience gave a big opportunity to reassess what I thought. In the end the desire for evidence-based knowledge and the knowledge of love combined to shape my views.
There’s many scientists who are believers, and there’s some atheists such as Dawkins or Hawking who get a lot more publicity than others. Dawkins argues that God does not exist. He says God is not required to explain evolution. Stephen Hawking says God is not required to explain how the universe came to into existence. But they do not argue that love does not exist because such a stance would be derisory. They would be laughed off stage. Because it is obvious to anyone that love exists. To love is to be human. Love forms the basis of most literature and drama and music. But what is the evidence that love exists? If you dissect the human heart, you cannot find love. Science tells us about hormones and pheromones. Sociology tells me that by falling in love, you are just doing what everybody else does. In the same way, if you study the human ear you cannot find music. When you grind up a skeleton, there is no courage in bones. And you can study bodies as long as you want, but you will not find sport or dance. Facial muscles will not provide any information about joy or laughter. This is because love and music and courage and dance and sport and joy and laughter belong to human experience.
I found and continue to find deep truths in bible verses. “God is love; those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” For me, God exists because love exists. If I can rephrase Descartes, I doubt therefore I think. I think therefore I am. I love, therefore God exists. I believe God is as much part of the human condition as loving or thinking or laughing.
Arguments from scientists denying God are fundamentally flawed. Scientists make faith-based assumptions which are largely unacknowledged. They assume that there is a physical world – without proof. All knowledge of the world is derived from human experience. Yet we know that the senses can be fooled; there are no certainties in or from observations. The philosophy of science recognises this, with the most commonly held view being that knowledge is provisional, being constantly refined and developed, and arises from a consensus of informed opinion. Scientific atheists do not like to discuss the philosophy of science or the nature of knowledge (epistemology) because the weakness of their position is so easily exposed. Moreover they do not like to consider the consequences of their world view. If God does not exist, what can be the basis of morality? On what grounds can we resist an oppressor eg Hitler? Why should I not steal a neighbour’s car or his wife, for that matter, assuming I can avoid the negative consequences of the neighbour’s anger? Evolution points towards survival of the fittest, generally the strongest, those who can control the greatest resources and produce the largest number of progeny. A godless world view denies personal responsibility; it denies personhood describing us as merely intelligent animals, it denies the value of individuals. A godless world literally dehumanises us.
I do not believe because some well-meaning but misguided Christian challenges me by asking if I have been born again. Such a person misunderstands Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and simply gets everybody’s backs up. I do not believe because a famous or influential person tells me to do so. I do not believe because I will get a free ticket to heaven. Nor do I believe in the fear of hell.
Because I fell in love as a teenager, I read some love poetry, and I had ample time to reflect on the meaning of this one short poem. “Love is a city set on a hill: You cannot possess the citadel from the outside.” In other words, you cannot experience or know love for yourself without actually being in love. Faith is like love; you cannot know about faith without practising it. It’s a chicken and egg thing.
But adopting belief or faith suddenly gives meaning to all of human experience. Music and drama and dance and birth and death and love and courage take on new and more profound meanings in a godly perspective. Belief in God was the first and most important step of faith for me, and then other much smaller steps drew me to Christianity. It would be so much more convenient not to believe in God because I wouldn’t have to go to church or give away money or help others. I can’t prove God. I can’t prove love. But for me, I find life is immeasurably richer and more secure knowing God, knowing love. And I feel sad for anyone who cuts themselves off from this profound joy.
Well there you go; not your usual Tuesday morning assembly, but something to think about. I hope you feel able to discuss elephants or other matters at lunchtime – and don’t let Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking do your thinking for you. Thanks for listening. John Edlin 4/10/11 Revised 15/11/11
