The God Delusion.

“THE GOD DELUSION” and LIFE AFTER DEATH.

I have just finished reading Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion” it tells of the lunacy, selfishness and cruelty of many religious people throughout the world. All sensible people, including many who do believe in God, are sure to be just as sickened and exasperated as Richard Dawkins is but dredging through the history of wrong thinking and weird ideas completely misses the point. 

The problem is that he has failed to include a whole raft of evidence under the general heading of psychic phenomena obviously because he has not been able to satisfy himself that this wide-ranging, complex and elusive subject is any different from all of the other madness he has written about. It’s frustrating for him and frustrating for me as I have spent over 40 years studying my subject close too as he has studying his. Unfortunately everything Psychic is thought of in religious and superstitious terms or the product of imagination and hallucination. But the amazing scientific evidence about our existence must include the Psychic as it is a part of the human condition. Though random and often times fleeting it is real, it is measurable and it has been investigated by Scientists upon whose shoulders modern science sits.  The records of their remarkable work show systematic and clear thinking that has the ring of truth all of which points in the same direction.

It may not be a scientific attitude but it seems to many people that there is an element of programming and design in the world. Survival of the fittest yes, living creatures shaped by the environment, of course, but the chances of an enormous variety of things and of systems being so perfect by mere chance does not make sense and yes perhaps a mathematician might say that I am wrong.  Richard believes that countless tiny steps of trial and error by which evolution works rules out the need for chance or a creative intelligence. i.e. God.  But there are still many unanswered questions for example, what is consciousness. Pond-dwelling organisms that are similar to cells in the body and have no brain or nervous systems are still able to make simple decisions.  Cells like these are able to grow into highly sophisticated bodies that use technology which surpasses anything that man can make.  The brain for example with its physical resemblance to a simple cauliflower is the only means by which we know that the outside world exists at all.  

But all of this doesn't really matter because there is a wide variety of evidence which suggests that the mind can exist separately from the body. –

Near-Death experiences during which those born blind can see and recognise what they are looking at, and at a time when the brain is shut down and unable to store memories.  They travel to a world of light and meet people sometimes not knowing they have died until after the experience.

Some individuals are able to leave the body at will, travel to other dimensions and talk to people out of the body both alive and ‘dead.’

Mediums have been able to produce verifiable facts under strict test conditions. And whilst generally speaking the most impressive messages are only a small percentage of more subjective material this kind of evidence is extremely common

Telepathy is another common human experience where mind can link with mind and is able to reach far beyond the confines of the cranium.  A fire cracker set off in the presence of one twin registered bodily with the other twin who was connected to a lie detector type machine in a different location.

Precognition. (Some knowledge of future events.)  This ability together with telepathy is widely reported but dismissed as anecdotal or hearsay evidence.  Ruling out most of it as sketchy or coincidental does not explain the convincing cases that remain. Again when wired up to a lie detector type machine the body ‘knows’ that a computer image will be highly upsetting before the picture appears on the screen.

When objects move on their own it can be a difficult phenomenon to study but enough research has been conducted by reputable, qualified people to warrant serious consideration of the subject. I used to assemble Seymour Television tables when I was an apprentice, little did I know that one day I, with a handful of friends would see one first up end onto two legs then one then eventually move around the room in mid-air week after week. The Psychic mechanisms that produce this kind of Phenomena were thoroughly investigated by W.J. Crawford D.Sc

The most convincing evidence is produced by Physical mediums in whose presence people who exist in a different reality after death materialise and can talk and embrace loved ones. Naturally this generates the most scepticism though once again sensible, sceptical highly qualified and world-famous scientists have satisfied themselves that it is genuine.  I have only seen one well-known moving image of a materialisation, why there aren't more is hard to understand. But the early researchers had powerful physical mediums to work with, modern scientists presumably have not. Nowadays many physical mediums do their work privately and whilst they tie themselves in knots to rule out any possibility of fraud for the sake of the people they are demonstrating to, unlike their well documented predecessors, they hesitate to subject themselves to the heavy hand of investigators.  You may convince one scientist or even a procession of them but it is a drop in the ocean as the other 99 percent who have not seen will continue to be scornful of their colleagues’ findings. 

There is much, much more all of which has been the subject of intense research and scrutiny. There will always be plenty of over-imaginative people and mediums who are not very good at what they do; who have more bad days than good. They might give the impression that nothing really happens but these experiences are common to millions of people. Many of the investigators have been world-renowned, scientists capable of logical and very sceptical thinking and in some cases determined to disprove the case.  (For example and ironically; Alfred Russell Wallace who together with Darwin formed the theory of evolution.)

Unbelievable and weird though our reality is as seen through scientific eyes, attempts to put a different interpretation on to it can only be greeted with disbelief: Though it is no less unbelievable than some of the Physicist’s theories it will be dismissed as Psycho babble or another spin on religion.

Because of the wide range of Psychic Phenomena we need to try to make sense of it and it is better seen in terms of technology rather than religion.

So here is my proposition:-

In a relatively short time men’s minds have created machines which to the man in the street are almost magical, think what man’s mind could do if he could live forever. R.D. believes that the mechanics of evolution answer all of the questions without any need for a God.  The word God is used as a put down, the Wizard of Oz, a superman, the fairy on the Xmas tree who can wave a magic wand and make everything come right. But the Gods of old and the angels and the spirits are ordinary or more accurately extra-ordinary people. They are our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues, our comrades in arms that have been around for an awfully long, long time. They, we, you, I and every living and inanimate thing are parts of one consciousness which had no beginning and will have no end; it just is. This means that there are an infinite number of individuals in time and space whose technical and spiritual experience of eternity could make anything possible.  To us they would seem like Gods because our knowledge is limited by the brain in this physical environment, fantastic though it may be.

The fact that human beings sprouted out of a ball of rock spinning in endless space sounds like a chapter from Alice in Wonderland. Nothing is solid everything is made of light, it is an illusion. The universe is like a ghost or a virtual creation suspended in space like a TV channel or a computer file, one alongside countless others of infinite variety.

The common denominator is mind.  I can’t pretend to even imagine what a spirit or a mind is but it is what we are, what we always have been and always will be. We are the energy that gives the human body life; we are the minds that write the history of mankind.

The size and scale of the universe makes it impossible to believe that it was created until we remember that the mind can contain it all.

So does it matter what the Atheists think? A lot of people are not happy with the idea that we here today and gone tomorrow like a light bulb that pops off and is thrown in the bin but that doesn't mean we should perpetuate a fairy story just to keep people happy. Truth is important and we look to the experts to guide us but they speak with such certainty when it really is just an opinion heavily prejudiced by religious jargon. Hope is essential in this life as it gives us a reason to learn, to grow in understanding and helps us to cope with the loss of our friends.  I do believe that everyone should know about the evidence so that they can make their own minds up.  Physical life is an adventure; a university; a joint enterprise like an orchestra or a play in which we all play an essential role.  And we love, and learn and hate, we conquer and are conquered, we are beaten and we return triumphant with a greater knowledge of ourselves and others that we have shared that story with.

I believe that free will is sacrosanct and that the universe and everything in it including the evolutionary process operates by cause and effect. For example an earth quake could destroy a church filled with children but it is a random tragedy. The souls of those children and their loved ones would have known before they came to earth what was in store for them, certain things that they needed to experience. They leave having played their part in life’s story; those left behind will understand loss, grief and perhaps a deeper love than they have ever known.

I am satisfied that no experience is ever wasted and we are never really alone as friends and loved ones that we have known throughout the ages help us through our inner minds to reach the goals that we set ourselves before we were born. This life is an interval, an infinitely tiny blip in our existence but the experience it brings us is beyond measure. It provides the impetus and the direction that we might understand both good and bad. We understand death, bereavement, giving one’s life for a friend, working and eating to live, disciplining the mind. We may rubbish religion but hidden with in it are gems, the inspiration to do good, to forgive, to be unselfish and to try to connect with the extraordinary power and goodness that is contained within the totality of mankind.