‘As soon as you bring religion into the story, things just don’t make sense’

I don’t believe in religion but I absolutely understand and respect the fact that it must be a very valuable support for many people, whatever their beliefs, colour or nationality. We all develop our own personal vision of what life is, what it is all about and where we are going when we finish our spell on this ball of rock.

I was given a very logical mind by my genes, and looking around me at the natural world, thinking of it as I am inclined to – in terms of evolution and physics – my reaction is that everything fits into a great and natural pattern, a pattern that has nothing to do with so-called religion. I believe that the evolution of just about everything is a series of pure chance occurrences, brought about by the meetings of different chemicals and minerals with certain climatic conditions, spread over billions of years.

So how old do the experts’ reckon the world to be? Well, it’s estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old, and evolution has been operating continually through all of that time, as the world’s climate changed due to its own cooling processes and the many other external forces acting on it – the main one being the sun, of course! Without the sun there would be no Earth. It is the provider of everything that has ever happened here, since the beginning of time.

But to me, as soon as you bring religion into the story, things just don’t work any longer. Some profound Christians believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, which is farcical to me when I see fossilised animals that have become embedded in solid rock, and in fact become rock themselves, or sea shells that can be found in rocks hundreds of metres above the sea, or coal, which we know is derived from long dead ancient plants but is mined from hundreds of metres below the surface.

I believe evolution is still going on, all around us, all the time, sometimes acting very slowly – as in the millions of years it has taken (I believe) for humans to develop into the animals we are today. Alternatively, it can operate at lightning speed: like the arrival this year of the coronavirus, which is undoubtedly going to cause many changes to the human race – destroying the weak and not harming the strong.

Even the so-called global warming we are experiencing at the moment is part of the overall picture, as far as I am concerned, which has little or nothing to do with people and what they are capable of. I think we are doomed to lose our fight against it in the long run, and we just have to find a way to adjust our own way of living to suit the changing situation.

Another reason I find it impossible to believe there is a God is because we are told by those who wish us to believe (maybe for their own purposes) that it is ‘all loving, all knowing and all forgiving’. So what sort of a God is it, possessing all these wonderful attributes, that allows paedophiles to damage so many of God’s youngest creations, or makes a thing called cancer that kills millions of other members of God’s flock, or allows wars, or allows so many different religions to exist when there should really only be one – if the stories we are told are true!

In closing, I’ll happily admit I may be completely wrong in my thinking. Instead of just ceasing to exist when I complete my tenure on this tiny grain, I may suddenly find that there is a God waiting to greet me, with my parents and various other relatives standing beside him. But I really hope not.

In the 85 years I have been here, I have done my best to be good rather than evil, both of which I know exist – without the necessity for religion – but when my time comes I shall be quite happy to say goodbye to everything and let the world continue on its journey through time and space. I just hope that somewhere along my journey I have made some difference for the betterment of everyone as they ride off into the future!