with the Rev Kevin Logan, Vicar of Christ Church, Accrington.
I'VE overdosed recently on why eight out of ten of us believe in God, according to the recent national census results.
I've come up with three reasons:
1. Our incredible universe is full of design, therefore there must be a designer.
2. Every effect around us has a cause. My mum and dad had fun causing me. Artists cause paintings, and so on. If everything has a cause, it would be extremely odd for Earth not to.
3. Our intelligence in grasping these ideas is incredible. Generations have deliberately tried to design intelligent computers and we're still failing. Is it therefore logical to think blind, unintelligent, mindless nature could have stumbled on Einstein and us by sheer fluke? Intelligence must come from a greater intelligence.
We could go on and on, but why?
The disciples ate, slept and walked with God for three years (in the person of Jesus Christ). He walked on water, changed water into wine, raised the dead, but still they struggled to believe. Blind men saw and 5,000 were fed with a handful of teacakes and the odd sardine, and they had 12 baskets of food left over.
Then, Jesus was arrested and killed, and his followers fled. Amazingly, he had to appear to them 11 times before satisfying himself that they believed he'd beaten death. And still some struggled. Only one thing worked.
Based on the mass of evidence, they opened their lives to God. Only then they let God come in and fill them with his Spirit of certainty.
God's still knocking on our doors.
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