In a rut

Although I haven’t been back to church on a Sunday since we left I am still in touch with people that do still attend. I have found out, for instance, that Inaspace is not doing terribly well since our departure.

This saddens me a little but doesn’t really suprise me. I don’t say that out of some conceited notion that it was ‘all about us’ but I do think that we did Inaspace really well and for one very simple reason. We got it.

If it goes under then so be it. Everything has its time and maybe time is up for this particular activity/group. I understand that in their attempts to breathe new life into things they are going to start doing it bi-weekly and in the evening instead of the morning. Both good initiatives, however, in order to inject some new ideas they are going to troop over to a cafe church in Timperley for inspiration. Quite apart from my general disdain for the whole ‘cafe-church’ phenomenon, how are they going to pick up what will work in Edgeley, ostensibly a poor working class area, from people in Timperley, an altogether more middle class and affluent place?

Moving the time etc. is a good move because it will work better for the people that attend and that is the key to the whole thing. BCLC and latterly Inaspace worked because of the place, the time and the people that attended. Once one of those changed (the place) something got lost along with it that has necessitated changing one or both of the other elements. But it did not and has never, to my recollection, been so bad in terms of content that it needed to replicate stuff that other churches were doing.

And so I fear for its future, but then if it doesn’t die then nothing can grow in its place so maybe it’s for the best.

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life

So spaketh the atheist-in-chief, Richard Dawkins and thus it came to pass…. people waiting at the bus stop, plastered to the side of  the bus.

I like this story.  I understand that the ‘probably’ is there to avoid the advertising standards council blocking the ad so really they are saying: ‘There’s no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’.

I have to admire their certainty. To know something so absolutely without a shadow of a doubt is obviously a way to a worry free life, although the only real way to do that, in this sense, would be to know everything. I guess you could argue that a little mystery in life does add to the enjoyment, most people enjoy a thrilling book or film where you don’t know the ending, but again I take the broad sense in what they are trying to say.

And there is no veiled insult to people of belief. No mention of an ‘imaginary friend’ which, of all the ways you can insult someone with a belief in an almighty, has to be one of the most belittling. Whether the atheists like it or not God, for those who believe in the existence of it (gender neutral), is very real. Of course there is no scientific evidence that would be accetable to prove this but then that can be said of a lot of things people readily accept.

If I am feeling happy, that feeling is very real, there could be any number of reasons for my feeling that way none of which I could explain or prove but the feeling is there none the less. Or love, I know if someone loves me and it’s not just because of the things they do for me, it is something greater something transcendental, something I cannot prove or touch or see. But it is real and it exists.

That is what God is I believe. Something very real that I cannot touch or see but know is there.

Sometimes people say they ‘found love when they weren’t really looking for it’. I hope that some of these atheists are not as certain as they claim and that some do find God, even though they are not looking. Not in any religious way (that’s what most of the rest of this blog rails against) but in a way that allows them to enjoy some of the mystery of life and not have to have a rational explanation for everything.

Then you can really stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Stockport, my kinda town

So, not only do we have the largest brick built structure in Europe, we now have 2 (that’s right two – count em) players in the BDO world-darts-cup-thing semi-final. Why would anyone ever want to live anywhere else?