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A healthy relationship with God

17/9/2010

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Looking through my files I came across the following passage, cut 'n' pasted from goodness knows where or when.  I thought it worth reproducing here...

'I observe, with profound regret, the religious struggles which come into many biographies, as if almost essential to the formation of the hero.  I ought to speak of these, to say that any man has an advantage...who is born, as I was, into a family where the religion is simple and rational; who is trained in the theory of such a religion, so that he never knows, for an hour, what these religious or irreligious struggles are.  I always knew God loved me, and I was always grateful to him for the world he placed me in.  I always liked to tell him so, and was always glad to receive his suggestions to me.


I can remember perfectly that when I was coming to manhood, the half-philosophical novels of the time had a deal to say about the young men and maidens who were facing the ‘problem of life’. I had no idea whatever what the problem of life was.  To live with all my might seemed to me easy; to learn where there was so much to learn seemed pleasant and almost of course; to lend a hand, if one had a chance, natural; and if one did this, why, he enjoyed life because he could not help it, and without proving to himself that he ought to enjoy it.

A child who is early taught that he is God’s child, that he may live and move and have his being in God, and that he has, therefore, infinite strength at hand for the conquering of any difficulty, will take life more easily, and probably will make more of it, than one who is told that he is born the child of wrath and wholly incapable of good'.

Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale
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Why this site is necessary!

14/9/2010

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http://reigniteuk.blogspot.com/2009/03/drop-free-christian.html
With 'friends' like this, who needs enemies?

The argument appears to be that Unitarian and Free Christian are synonymous terms; "two different names for the same tradition".

In the later nineteenth century and earlier twentieth century, that could perhaps be argued.  It's hardly true today.  Times have changed and there certainly are "Unitarians (who are not Christians)".

It seems another example of the creeping tendency to want to brand the Unitarian and Free Christian movement with a single corporate identity and excise the bits that don't fit neatly.
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Hawking and God and science

6/9/2010

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The  front page of the Times of 2 September 2010 reported that in his latest book The Grand Design Stephen Hawking has decreed God is not required for the existence of the universe; that the unaided laws of physics will do just fine.  Of course, one’s first reaction was that the standard of reporting of scientific and religious matters is so poor now, even in broadsheets, that the newspaper story may bear little relation to what Professor Hawking said.  In this case, however, Professor Hawking is hawking a book and the Times was serialising it, so there is some interest in journalistic accuracy.

The next day had the replies from the Archbishop of Canterbury, scientist -theologians, the Chief Rabbi and so on.  They mounted a robust defence of theism.  They were aided by Professor Hawking’s hubristic (I would say foolish, but it probably helped sales of the book) dismissal of philosophy as dead which called into question his judgement about any area of knowledge outside of his particular field of physics.  Reaction to the mistitled The Grand Design have not all been kind, as here for example.

This silly (I use the word deliberately) dismissal of another mode of enquiry after knowledge reminded me, of course, of the ubiquitous Richard Dawkins.  And sure enough up he popped in the Times as the archpriest of dogmatic atheism.  Once again he showed that he regards scientific questions - I leave aside what that actually means - as the only ones worth asking, dismissing more open-ended ones as ‘silly’.   This form of arrogance represents a curious failure of intelligence on the part of a very clever man.  It renders his attacks on religious faith as predictable and harmless, and (I'm writing as an ex-atheist) he is now surely more damaging to the cause of atheism.

All this obscured the fact that notwithstanding the robust defence I mention above, advances in scientific understanding of the universe do indeed pose a challenge to traditional theism.   Not because they disprove God - they do not and cannot - but because they take a creator God out of the equation.   Yet while theism retains a creator by removing God from any place where there might be any conflict with scientific theory, this means that whatever role is left for God offends the principle of Ockham's Razor.  So while it might be true to state, as God's defenders do in the TImes, that there is no necessary conflict between science and theism, is this because all meaningful ground has been conceded?
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New in Worship material

2/9/2010

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I’ve added a few selections from The Splendour of God. Prayers and devotions for private and corporate use a prayerbook produced by the Anglican Evangelical Group Movement, a Liberal Evangelical society that flourished in the early and mid twentieth century.
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    What's here

    A quick look at the 'blogosphere' shows that the nature of the medium means it is all too easy for a 'blog' to convey the impression that its compiler is, at best, self-indulgent and verbose, and at worst, a narcissistic bore.  Religious blogs are by no means immune from this.

    However, while I shall try to avoid sharing my each and every passing thought with you, there is a use for a space for shorter, more ephemeral pieces of writing, and on this website, that's here.   These pieces are likely to be frequently revised, sometimes rewritten and occasionally removed.

    ewayfarers@gmail.com

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