Has Physics Taken a Wrong Turn?

Just before the beginning of the 20th century, physics seemed to be all sown up. Newton’s laws of gravitation showed that the planets in their orbits behaved in perfect accord with his mathematical laws, except for a small discrepancy in the path of Mercury, the planet nearest the sun. And in the realm of the small, the electromagnetic force seemed to account for all phenomena, again except for one small detail to do with blackbody radiation. Whereas physicists expected radiation to vary in a smooth fashion, it seemed to vary in discrete jumps, like small packets. In fact Maxwell (known for his equations describing electromagnetism) said “…that, in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals”. How wrong he was!

In the early 20th century two giants of physics, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr came along and totally shattered that illusion. All the problems in physics were not solved at all and in fact are far from solved even today.

In the realm of atoms, Max Planck, a German physicist, towards the end of the 19th century, performed a number of experiments which showed that energy came in little bundles. This is regarded as the birth of quantum mechanics. After Planck came Niels Bohr, a Dane who became a professor at the University of Copenhagen. Bohr made major contributions to quantum theory throughout the course of his life, particularly during the first half of the 20th century. Along with Werner Heisenberg he developed the theory which would become known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. This held sway for many years although today there are many other interpretations of the theory.

On the other hand, in the realm of the very big, Albert Einstein developed two theories, the special and general theories of relativity. The special theory dealt with the speed of light (constant in a vacuum) and his famous energy equation (the amount of energy locked in a lump of matter is equal to the mass of the matter multiplied by the square of the speed of light). This simple equation simply says that not only can energy be transferred into mass and vice versa, but as the square of the speed of light is such a huge number, the amount of energy contained in even a tiny lump of matter is enormous. This led eventually to the development of nuclear energy. The general theory dealt with gravitation solving the niggling problem of the discrepancy in Mercury’s orbit.

However, while in the world of the very large (everything from our everyday knowledge of people, tables and chairs to the universe itself) things seemed to knit neatly into place (however see below), it wasn’t so in the world of the very small, the demesne of the atom. For a start, Heisenberg came up with his uncertainty principle which said that you could not measure two related aspects of a particle, for example, it’s position and velocity, at the same time. If you knew it’s position with extremely high accuracy, you could not know it’s velocity with any certainty and vice versa. And this wasn’t anything to do with the accuracy of our measuring instruments, it was something fundamental to the nature of particles such as the constituents of atoms like electrons and protons and perhaps even to atoms themselves.

And further, every particle exhibited aspects of particles and waves. Depending on how you measured it, it could appear as a wave or a particle. The well known double slit experiment showed this clearly and became known as complementarity.

Furthermore, in the quantum world, because of the uncertainty principle, you could not tell when an atom would decay. You could only give a statistical average. If you had millions of atoms, you could predict how many would decay over a certain time, but not which ones.

This led to the story of Schrodinger’s cat. Erwin Schrodinger was a physicist who came up with an equation which described how a system of many particles would change over time. In the tale of the unfortunate cat, a subatomic particle is placed in a box along with the cat. The fate of the cat rested on whether the particle decayed or not (which probability was fifty-fifty). If the particle decayed it caused a phial of poison gas to be broken which killed the cat. If the particle did not decay, no gas was released and the cat lived. Because the box is sealed you will not know what happened till you open it. Naturally this is only a very simple illustration of the paradox and leaves out a lot of subtle technical details. But it purported to show that until the box is actually opened the cat is neither dead nor alive but in a state of entanglement of the two outcomes, a sort of dead/alive cat. This of course was a thought experiment and was never actually carried out. But it served as a good example of the apparent absurdity of quantum physics.

Einstein took umbrage at this and even though he had been involved in the early development of quantum mechanics (wave/particle duality for example), he was a forceful opponent of it. Legend are his many arguments with Bohr on the subject and he was never reconciled to the theory, dying in 1955. However, as the years wore on and more experiments were done, they tended to support quantum theory. Many more theories were put forward to try and explain what was going on in the quantum world. One physicist quipped that there were as many different theories as there were physicists.

One really crazy theory is the Many Worlds theory first put forward by a physicist called Hugh Everett. Referring back to our famous cat above, this theory basically said that when something in the atomic world can go in one of two (or more) ways, it actually chooses all ways. The universe splits at this point and in one universe the cat lives while in the other the cat dies. This leads to billions and billions of universes which in my opinion is like cracking the proverbial nut with a nuclear bomb! It’s nonsense, yet surprisingly many physicists say it is the correct theory.

Another major problem we have is the fact that general relativity theory and quantum theory cannot be reconciled together and hence we have two theories of the universe. One of the very large and one of the very small, a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. One of the reasons for this is that general relativity regards space as continuous while quantum mechanics does not. If you try and put the mathematics together, you get infinities popping up and this is a serious flaw.

So for many years physicists have been working on trying to marry the two theories together. What popped up was string theory which eventually was able to cope with both general relativity and quantum mechanics within the constraints of the one theory. This was great except for one detail. String theory then (it was first muted around 1970) and string theory today has not one shred of experimental evidence to show for itself. It is purely a mathematical theory. While it may be a beautiful piece of mathematics, it nonetheless remains moonshine. Maybe one day, it is possible, we may find some evidence for it. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest particle accelerator in the world, which began operations late last year, will be searching diligently for evidence of strings, but even when it reaches it’s full energy capacity sometime next year, it will still be far short of achieving the energies necessary to show evidence for strings. There may be hints but that is all which can be hoped for.

String theory basically replaces all particles with tiny vibrating strings of energy and depending on their frequency of vibration can reproduce every known particle. This may sound grand, but unfortunately these strings do not exist in normal 3-dimensional space (or 4-dimensional if we add time as a dimension). They exist in 11 dimensions. Other string variants can exist in different numbers of dimensions but 11 seems to be generally agreed. But it doesn’t really matter how many dimensions we speak about because there is no evidence for any of these extra dimensions and besides we are really getting into the realm of science fiction, at least in my humble opinion.

So what is happening? Have we really come up against it when trying to figure out the detailed workings of the universe? Is it too big for us? Can our puny human brains handle it? Since the age of the industrial revolution (and even before) men of science have made great strides in understanding the universe and how it works. They have come a long way in a relatively short time. And the progress has been accelerating all the time. Until now. While great things are still being discovered and achieved in other areas of science, physics seems to have come to a dead stop. The standard model, as it is called, has been with us since the 1950s and 1960s, and while it has been improved and refined, it is still with us. And it only encompasses the theory of the atomic world and does not include general relativity which stubbornly remains outside it’s scope.

The Large Hadron Collider has now been operating for a year or so and has only been ramped up to about half it’s design energy. So far the standard model has been confirmed, but no new physics has been seen. But we will probably have to wait till the LHC reaches it full operating energy next year sometime.

So what are some of the outstanding questions we need to answer in particle physics and cosmology? The usual questions are still with us in quantum mechanics. For example, what is meant by a measurement and does this measurement cause the cat, for example, to leave the dead/live stage and become either dead or alive? Does the act of measurement split the universe into two or more universes (the many worlds theorem)? Is the universe 4-dimensional (including time) or multi-dimensional? Are the smallest items of our universe made of particles or strings? Or maybe something else?

Of course there are also questions still to be addressed in the world of the very large. For example, how did the universe begin? For many years there were two different theories, the Big Bang and the Steady State theories. The Big Bang simply stated that the universe began in a massive explosion from a point millions of times smaller than an atom. Not only was all matter we see around us created in that moment, but also spacetime as well. Before that moment nothing existed, not even time. The joke goes that when St Augustine, one of the early Church Fathers, was asked what was God doing before the creation of the world, he answered that He was preparing Hell for people who asked such idle questions. Of course he didn’t answer so glibly. He actually said that time was a property of the universe that God created when he created everything else, so he wasn’t so far from modern ideas here. On the other hand the Steady State said that the universe always existed and that continuous creation was ongoing to fill out the vacuum left as space expanded. However, this idea was shelved when the radio echo of the Big Bang was discovered coming from every point in the sky.

Once it became generally accepted that the Big Bang was the start of our universe, the questions then became what happened before the Big Bang? What caused the Big Bang? If one Big Bang could occur, where there others? Is there more than one universe? It seems that with every new answer followed a myriad of new questions.

And today, it appears that not only is the universe expanding, but instead of slowing down from the initial kick from the Big Bang, it is actually accelerating. A mysterious substance called dark energy is proposed to be responsible for this acceleration and hence we need to ask what is dark energy. Nobody knows. And to make matters worse, there is also another substance in our universe called dark matter. This is to account for the fact that galaxies should not hold together with the present mass that they contain. At least that we can see and measure, so there must be more mass. This is the dark matter. In fact, our universe as we understand it today consists of 70% dark energy, 25% dark matter which leaves 5% for all the rest, the stars, planets etc. That means we haven’t a clue as to what 95% of our universe is composed of and what’s more, we can’t even see any of it.

And with all our equations, theories etc. there are still many anomalies in our understanding of physics in areas we thought we knew everything about. Like Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. A pair of unmanned spacecraft called Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 were sent on a reconnaissance mission of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and interstellar space, having been launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively. According to known laws of physics, these spacecraft are not where they are supposed to be. They are falling behind in their projected travel by about 5000 kilometers per year. This needs to be explained and much work is being done to address the problem, including adjusting our present theory of gravitation. However, no answers are forthcoming as I write.

Another interesting anomaly is the so called horizon problem. This is asking the question as to how the universe is so uniform no matter in which direction we look. The microwave background radiation which fills the whole universe is at the same temperature everywhere. As nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, there is no way this radiation could have travelled between the most distant parts of the universe to even out the hot and cold spots created in the Big Bang. One wild solution to this was suggested by a physicist called Alan Guth when he came up with an idea called inflation. This says that the universe expanded incredibly rapidly just after the Big Bang in the order of billions of times in billionths of a second. A hairy conjecture which only opens up more questions as to how this might have happened etc.

So it seems to me that the progress (or lack of) modern physics makes, the weirder the answers become. Many worlds, extra dimensions, dark energy, string theory etc. And many of these are pure conjecture with little or no evidence to back them up. Not that I despair of modern physics, it is a most fascinating subject. But it looks like the days are gone (or at least are in abeyance) when new particles were being discovered regularly and theory and experiment went hand in hand. Now experiment is lacking severely behind the theorists who continue to astonish us with their new forays into the unknown.

I should note that I have only scratched the surface of this amazing subject, there is so much more that I could have mentioned. In the meanwhile, we wait for experiments to catch up with theory and hopefully the LHC will ramp up to full energy sooner rather than later. But will it be enough?

Death

Death. The word smacks of finality. An end to our existence, at least in the mortal world. Books have been written about it. Poems have been written about it. Films have been made about it. But what exactly is it? We can only really speak about it from this side of the grave as nobody has ever come back from the other side to tell us what it was like. Okay, I know plenty of people will feel their hackles rising at this point but I’ll get to all that later.

There are many definitions of death depending where you’re coming from. Medically, it used to be when the heart stopped beating, but today people can be sustained on life support systems and actually recover. However, it is probably when brain activity ceases. From that point on the body becomes paler, the blood settles in the lower portions, the temperature drops, the limbs become stiff and eventually decomposition begins. At this point the body is placed in a coffin and buried or cremated.

All neatly done and dusted and everyone can go home, bringing with them their fond and maybe not so fond memories. Somebody said if the Irish had half the respect for the living as they do for the dead, this would be a great place to live. Well, I agree with that and is one reason why if I didn’t like somebody when they were alive, their death ain’t going to change my opinion of them.

Why do some people fear death so much? Personally I don’t fear death at all, but having said that if I were put up against a wall right this minute with a gun pointed at my head, I’d be quakin’ in my shoes. And who knows, if I ever get to lie on my death bed in the full knowledge that I’m about to quit this mortal coil, I’ll probably be pretty scared too. But at this point in time the only qualms I have are about suffering. Nobody wants to suffer. After all death is a part of life, albeit the final bit. I have no fear of the afterlife (if there is one) either. Being an agnostic, if it turns out that God meets me, I’ve no doubt (due to my belief in science and reason) that such a being is benign and would quite agree with me that it was the mind and reasoning powers He provided me with which led me to my agnosticism.

Another reason I might fear death is the awful possibility of premature burial. Now, that is really scary. Image waking up and finding yourself in a coffin from which there is no escape. Or worse still, waking up as the coffin is about to enter the furnace if you’re being cremated. However, I believe that medical science is sufficiently advanced these days that this doesn’t happen anymore. At least I sure hope so. I remember a woman waking up in the morgue in Dublin in the 1960s. The attendant got as big a fright as she did.

Some fear death because, not believing in anything, just don’t want to leave this world. They don’t want to die into nothing and therefore “rage, rage against the dying of the light”, as Dylan Thomas’ poem expresses so well. But if there is nothing there, they are not going to know. They’ll be dead! And it’s hard to imagine that anybody is so certain that there is nothing after death that it should scare them so. But I guess there are all sorts of folks in the world.

Some fear death, because they haven’t exactly lived a good life and they realise that finally they might meet with some justice. Well, I don’t think they should worry too much as I doubt God is waiting with a big grin on his face to grab their souls and haul them off to Hell. As I don’t believe in the devil, there’s no point even discussing such a nonsense concept. I could be wrong, and at the end of the day if God does exist and allows the existence of such a monster as Satan, then even the good need to be terrified.

Maybe others fear death because it is so unknown. And that’s probably the biggest fear of mankind: the unknown. What’s out there and what can it do to us? But surely, death must be the most exciting adventure any of us can undertake? This is the one time we really are all alone as we step over the threshold. What’s there? If there’s nothing, we’re not going to know. A bit of a letdown really. But how about if there is an afterlife, I mean what kind of trip would that be? Let’s think about it.

If it is like most people in the Western World have been told, then we get to come face to face with God. This incredible powerful being, who not only made the whole universe (just think about that!) but also each one of us. That’s a mighty potent piece of engineering. Then we get to spend eternity doing, I’m sure, very interesting things. I doubt we’ll all be bored out of our minds sitting around on clouds singing songs of praise all day. And I’m pretty sure we don’t have to consider going through a spell in Purgatory. That was something dreamed up by the Church in the 12th century as they couldn’t conceive that anybody might be pure enough to enter Heaven immediately after death and we all had to spend some time getting purged first. And Hell? All I can say if there is such a place, then God is a tyrant after all and we’re all screwed. Which leads to the interesting question as where evil people go. This is a topic in it’s own right and all I can say is with Mahatma Gandhi “love the sinner, hate the sin”. Not an easy thing to do at all and probably something quite impossible to do by anybody but a very, very forgiving person. “Forgive your enemies,” said Christ. Easier said than done. So having said that, I leave this topic to another day.

In my opinion, if there is an afterlife, I would think it unlikely that we are brought full blown into it. I would assume that we enter a spiritual sphere and live a life there, no longer physical but spiritual. And once again we die in that life and move on to an even higher mode of existence. I don’t know for how long this might continue or how many higher levels of existence there might be. Maybe infinite. This might be one answer as to what evil people might face as in this spiritual dimension they would have to face their own evil. But this is getting too speculative.

I also find it strange the number of people who don’t want to discuss death. They think it is morbid or ghoulish. Personally I find it fascinating and like it or not, we are all going to face it one day. And not only that, we’re going to be alone when we do so. Oh, you can say there will be people with you at the end gathered around your death bed. If we go like that, then notwithstanding the fact that there may be people around you, you still go into that good night alone. Nobody else in that room is going to volunteer to come with you. I remember my father on his death bed. According to my mother afterwards he knew he was dying but didn’t want to talk about it. Okay, I accept his right not to speak about it, but I thought it was a great pity. I hope I’m not afraid to speak about it if I find myself in such a situation or the doctor has given me so long to live. It would be a shock, but you get over shocks and hopefully come to terms with it.

Above I said that nobody has ever come back from death to tell us about it. Many people will have something to say about that. I’ll try to give my point of view in what follows.

Of course, the main objection I suppose is religious. We have been brought up to believe in God and if we live a good life here on Earth, we will gain our reward in Heaven. But who told us this? It started with our parents and then our teachers. We were children. We knew no better. We believed everything our parents and teachers told us. We were bombarded with information about God, and how He looked after us, even supplying a personal guardian angel to guide us through our lives. Less emphasis was put on the demon who also accompanied us through our lives tempting us to commit sin. Sin, that awful word, which was bound up (at least in our earliest years) with some mysterious and dreadful deeds more awful than lying or murder. We would be somewhat older before it was equated with sex!

And if we did lead a good life, of course we went to heaven when we died. If the Christian Brothers were to be believed, there were many cases when the souls of the faithful departed did in fact come back to regale us with stories of the afterlife, usually with dire warning to avoid bad companions in this life or face the prospect of an eternity in hell. But these were only stories. Nobody came back to visit me, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to others. But I have never come across a definite case where it has happened. Oh, people have told me about their ghost stories and so forth, but when I begin to question them more closely, I can quickly see that is all it is, stories. And if I ask where exactly is the particular house which is definitely haunted and where I’m guaranteed to see a ghost, the answer becomes vague or I’m told the house has been sold and besides don’t I ever take anybody’s word for it. Quite frankly, no, I don’t.

What about séances? Can’t we communicate with the dead? Don’t mediums work? Oh, you’ll get a lot of charlatans playing at this game. But I believe mediums and such have been exposed so many times, it is amazing, at least to me, why anybody in their right mind still believe the garbage that they say. The American magician, James Randi, among many others have shown how mediums conduct their business many times. It is called cold reading. This is a technique easily learned. Next time you attend a session where the medium says they are contacting the dead, or even see it on television, pay close attention. Typically with an audience they might start by saying something like “I’m hearing from somebody called James, does anybody know a James?” Well the chances are that in any reasonably sized audience somebody will have a relative who has died called James, or Jimmy, or Jim. They never say they are being contacted by somebody called Zacharias, for example. “Now this James”, the medium will continue, “died from some illness.” Oh yes, big deal. What else did they die from? Laughter? “I’m getting the word cancer,” they’ll say. And so they’ll continue and when they have narrowed down one gullible in the audience they’ll concentrate on them. “James is telling me to tell you he is happy and not to worry about the money.” Maybe at this point the person whose relative is speaking to them from the other side (the other side of what, I ask cynically) says they don’t know what James is talking about. Watch closely how the medium quickly says something to cover up, like “No, it’s not money. Not in that sense. Did he leave a house?” And most likely they are back on track again. Yes, there was a house. And this goes on till the unfortunate person from the audience is in tears really believing that this shyster is really talking to their relative James. Shame on them. They always get things wrong, but quickly change the subject. What don’t people notice this?

And then again I’ve spoken to people who have visited a fortune teller and they will tell me how many things they got right. But I like to ask them how many things they got wrong. People only remember what they want. It’s human nature, I suppose. The chances are that I can tell somebody I never met before ten things about themselves, and I’m bound to get at least two or three correct. Professional charlatans (or indeed illusionists who tell you they are using trickery and not supernatural talent) have honed their craft well and using a lot of other tricks, like body language etc. will get a lot more things correct.

The great Houdini spent many years going to séance after séance in the hope of being able to contact his deceased mother. After a short while he realised the futility of such an enterprise and turned his talents to exposing these mediums. He exposed every medium he ever examined. He even offered a cash prize to any medium who could show that contact with the afterlife was possible. Nobody ever collected the prize.

Even today, the illusionist James Randi has similarly offered a cash prize which nobody has been able to collect. He has exposed all who tried.

Another proof of life after death offered by some is the Near Death Experience or as the yanks like to say, NDE. I’m sure you are familiar with the scenarios, one of which describes a person who dies on an operating table. Their heart stops and they find themselves floating above the operating room and being able to see their body surrounded by doctors, nurses and medical machines. They see the team frantically trying to resuscitate their heart and seeming to fail. In the meantime they float on up through the operating room ceiling and become aware of a long tunnel at the end of which there is a very bright light. There are various descriptions of this light, but those who experience it feel more strongly than anything they have ever felt before, that they have to get to that light. It is drawing them to itself and they experience a wonderful sense of peace and happiness. Suddenly as they are about to reach it, they are drawn back and find themselves back in their body, the surgical team having successfully revived them. And in many cases this experience changes their lives, they feel closer to nature and God and often end up living a better life, free of mundane care.

However, as with everything else, there are a number of proposed explanations for this phenomenon, including recollection of the birth experience, effects of drugs or medicines, oxygen starvation, a flood of endorphins (a type of morphine) released by the dying brain, and hallucinations among others. Scientific investigation into NDEs has shown that oxygen starvation for example can produce very similar sensations. And the experience does appear to be the same across different cultures implying a common cause (human brain?). However it seems to me that it is not necessary to postulate an afterlife as an explanation when the answer could well lie in physiological or biological mechanisms.

And of course the biggest proof if you like of an afterlife is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So if you believe in Jesus and Christianity, you believe in an afterlife. However, it is no proof that an afterlife exists. It is a matter for faith alone and I can’t quibble with that.

But do we always have to demand evidence? Why not just accept it on faith? Many people do so and if that’s what they have decided then who am I to argue. I’m sure they have good reasons, maybe even had a theophany. However, I simply cannot do that. My logical, scientific, rational mind cries out against it. And I have never had a vision or an encounter with a supernatural being (you might like to check out my article below on Ghosts). I have, along with many others, no reason to accept what others say about such an important topic. Surely, if God exists, He knows how I feel and think and would do something about it. I’m not looking for lightning bolts from heaven but maybe a nod in the right direction. I have often gone into a church at times when nobody else is there as I find them places of quiet, peace and solitude. There is an atmosphere which I have not found elsewhere. I sit quietly near the altar and observe my surroundings. Statues and pictures depicting scenes from the bible or representations of Christ or his mother and other saints. A hush hangs in the air imbued with a scent of incense. You can almost hear the silence. A faint sense of mystery beckons. I look at the various pictures and wonder which bible story they are relating. Sometimes I know, other times I don’t. Then I try and blank my mind. I succeed for a very short time and in that moment try to let God in. But then thoughts come crashing through as if abhorring a vacuum. I become aware of my surroundings again. The quiet sounds of a church. And then intrusions of other sounds, a car in the distance, a gentle snap as the building settles, a door opening somewhere. And then the silence falls heavy again. Nothing stirs and I get up and leave.

I guess in this life there is no way we’re going to find out anything about the next one. We’re just going to have to go there and see. And I, for one, am in no hurry.

Christmas

I am one of those people who love Christmas and have done so ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I always feel an atmosphere in the air coming up to Christmas day, especially Christmas Eve. It seems a wondrous time to be alive and people genuinely seem to be more friendly and welcoming.

My earliest memories of Christmas are of my mother telling me (and probably my brother too, these memories encompass a few Christmases together) that it was time to write to Santa to tell him that most importantly I had been a good boy and secondly to inform him what I’d like as a Christmas present. Well, a comic book usually featured along with a toy Noah’s ark, or a fire brigade, or a cowboy gun and holster. Not in those days did we have the ridiculous “we mustn’t encourage violence in our child” crap. When did a gun and holster ever encourage a child to violence? Anyway, my mother sat down at the table with me and wrote the sacred letter. Then she carefully folded it and put it in an envelope which she let me lick and stick. The next step was to light a corner of the envelope in the fire and throw it up the chimney. This was how letters reached Santa Claus in the North Pole. I’m not exactly sure of the physics of it, but I guess the little flame at the corner of the envelope gave it a sort of rocket impetus which blasted it up the chimney on it’s long journey. Apparently it always reached it’s destination as I always got the present requested. Probably even more reliable than the internet!

Then there was the obligatory day in town. Mam (Dad, I guess was at work) took myself and my younger brother into town to visit Santa in Clery’s. We had to queue up outside as the excited line of kids and parents slowly made it’s way along the street and into the great shop. Then through the aisles amidst the hustle and bustle of shoppers and eventually we were able to catch our first delighted look at the magic man himself, sitting in great majesty in his red robes and long white beard.

“And what’s your name, young man?”

“Fergal,” I replied.

“Have you been a good boy for Mammy and Daddy?”

“Oh yes,” says I.

“And what would you like for Christmas?” beamed Santa.

“I’d like a book, and Noah’s ark,” I said, “And some sweets.”

“Ho, Ho,” replied Santa shaking with mirth, “And don’t forget to leave a carrot by the chimney for Rudolph and a small bottle of Guinness for me. It’s a thirsty trip from the North Pole to all the boys and girls in the whole world.”

“I won’t forget,” I promised as Santa put a small blue covered package in my hands.

“Happy Christmas” he said as I hurriedly returned to my mother clutching my little present in my hands.

When we returned to the street outside, it had grown quite dark and time to head off to McBirney’s across the quays to see the fabulous Christmas lights they put up outside their shop every year. We stood in awe on the far side of the Liffey taking in this majestic Christmas sight. There was Santa in his sleigh loaded down with presents, his beard flapping in the wind as he was pulled on his journey round the world by his trusty reindeer, led by the powerful Rudolph. The silent changing of the lights gave the impression of great movement as if we were watching the mystical voyage itself through the starry night.

Next we went to Grafton Street to see the lights there, hung across the street and sending great cheer to all the Christmas people, changing the landscape into a canvass of flashing colours. Finally we made our way to Switzer’s (or was it Brown Thomas’s) window display with scenes from some fairy story told with moving figures. After a tiring but happy day we returned home.

The weekend before Christmas day my father took us to get the Christmas tree. My brother and myself helped him to carry it home from the local shop (we didn’t have a car in those days). But this was part of the fun, carrying it up the street and to our house. Then as my father anchored the tree to the floor somehow, we busied ourselves getting out the decorations and generally giving a helping hand. To be honest my father would probably have done it all in half the time, but he was a patient man. And once the tree with all it’s lights was turned on, it was time to erect the crib. This was a beautiful open cabin which my father had built from plywood sometime in the past and had a door and windows cut in the back through which we could see the three wise men travelling across the land in search of the promised messiah. They were guided by a star in the sky and rode on camels. This was an old Christmas card we had received a few years before and which my father had used as a very effective backdrop to the main activity happening in the foreground. There was the infant Jesus surrounded by Mary and Joseph, a cow and an ass, a couple of shepherds and an angel kneeling for some reason in the back. This my father informed us was the real reason for Christmas.

And so the days hurried on and suddenly it was Christmas Eve. This was my favourite day and night of all. It brought all the hard work and preparations almost to a close. This was the moment of great anticipation for the wonderful day ahead. The only thing I found hard about it was the stink in the kitchen as my mother removed the turkey’s entrails before cleaning it, stuffing it and getting it ready for the oven. It took an hour for the stench to abate and I stayed well away until it was gone. Then the lovely smell of cooking turkey and ham, the plum pudding boiling away in it’s big pot, and the warmth of the kitchen which was quite unlike it’s warmth on normal days. This was like the kitchen knew it was a special event and wanted to join in. This was an extra happy kitchen.

Then sometime after tea Mr Dillon, the man who lodged in the flat above us, came down with a present for me. He was a nice man who I had befriended and often sat at his dinner table eating his discarded potato skins when he came in from work and strangely had his dinner when everybody else were having their tea. But every year he came down to our flat on Christmas Eve. He carried a box which he gave to me and with a shy smile wished me a Happy Christmas.

“What do you say?” prodded my father.

“Thank you, Mr Dillon,” I’d say, “And Happy Christmas”.

Inside the box, which I was always allowed to open when he had gone as it wasn’t a Santa present and so could be opened on Christmas Eve, was either a Mechano set or a Lego set. These were great presents and I was always pleased as punch to receive them.

My mother then got the tall Christmas candle and placed it firmly in a pot of clay. She opened the curtains a good foot or two and placed it on the window sill. Then she lit it telling me that it was to guide Our Lady and St Joseph on their way to Bethlehem where Jesus would be born in a stable. A lovely tradition.

At last bedtime came round and it was a night I was told I had to particularly make sure I went to sleep as soon as possible. I didn’t want to be awake when Santa pushed his way down the chimney and up to my bedroom to leave my presents at the end of the bed, have his little drink of Guinness and then depart as quietly as he came, taking Rudolph’s carrot with him. Funny he never left soot marks on the floor.

I hurriedly got into my pyjamas and got down on my knees by my bed to say my prayers. Then jumping between the covers, I snuggled down for sleep. My mother pinned a sock at the end of the bed for Santa to place some sweets in. Then my parents kissed me goodnight and urged me to sleep saying the Candyman would be along very shortly to sprinkle stardust in my eyes (as good old Roy Orbison sang).

I never had trouble sleeping at any time, but it especially came easy on Christmas Eve. However, it wouldn’t be long (at least to me, although it was somewhere in the middle of the night) before I’d awake with the thoughts of Santa rushing through my mind. Had he been yet? Only one way to find out as I sat up in bed and crawled towards where the sock was pinned. Would it be empty or full? It was always full and with a cry of delight, I’d leap up, turn on the light to find my presents on the floor at the end of my bed. Oh what a thrill as I tore off the wrapping to find exactly what I’d requested in that letter some weeks before which had winged it’s way to the North Pole. Then my brother and I would scramble to our parent’s bedroom to wake them with hollers of delight as we showed them both what Santa had left. Little did I know they knew full well what Santa had left and were only dying to get back to sleep. However, we were never aware of their urgency and it wasn’t long before we were both convinced to return to bed till the morning.

Then the second awakening as the dawn struggled to rise and we were free to get up and dress in preparation for the great day. First, before we could have any sweets or get down to any serious play with our new toys, we had to have breakfast (in later years it was a glass of water as we had to fast before Holy Communion) and head off to mass. During those days of Latin intonation and graveness the priest actually smiled and wished the whole congregation a Happy Christmas at the end of the mass.

Then we came home and were allowed full rein with our toys and sweets. As always my Uncle Raffles (his real name was Charles but everybody called him Raffles) arrived at our house in his car and always gave me a half crown for Christmas. He stayed for about an hour talking and joking and drinking his pre-warmed bottle of Guinness. I like Guinness today, but I couldn’t stand it warm. Ah well, different times, different folks!

Then at around four o’clock in the afternoon my mother summoned us in for dinner. It was the one day in the year I’d be truly starving at the lateness of the hour. We normally had dinner at dinner time (one o’clock) and tea at teatime (six o’clock). This was the normal way of the universe, in our house at any rate.

First we’d get the rich creamy soup. And then the main fare would arrive, the golden cooked turkey, the steaming ham, the brussels sprouts (a particular favourite of mine to this day) and the roast potatoes. My father always gave me a leg of the turkey as he told me this was what a man should eat, even though I’d have much preferred the breast. No matter, it was delicious. And as always we were too full to have any of the plum pudding, although it was duly brought to the table, sprinkled with whiskey and lit, it’s blue flame just discernable in the gathering dusk. Accordingly we left it till later in the evening. I didn’t particularly like the plum pudding itself, but I sure as hell liked the brandy butter. I remember one Christmas discovering the brandy butter already made a few days before and scoffing about half of it. I was very sick that day, I can tell you.

Over the years, Christmas changed little in our house. I grew older of course, and old friends like Santa and Mr Dillon left the scene and a little of the magic went with them. But then my own kids came along and reignited the old memories once again. I attempted to build a crib just like my father had done all those years ago, but not being gifted with my hands, it turned out a miserable failure. So I bought one instead. It was never like my father’s though. And of course Santa came back.

As we lived in one of those new fangled houses which didn’t have a fire place (this hot air central heating thing was all the rage) I had to come up with a new way of getting Santa’s letter to him. So I just got my kids to put it in the local letter box and let An Post worry about it. Fair play to them, they always got the letter to the North Pole on time. I often wonder what exactly they did with those letters as I know I wasn’t the only one posting them. Santa of course had to have a skeleton key which fitted every house which didn’t have a chimney. God, the lies we tell our children!

I think it was my firstborn’s second Christmas when he knew a little about Santa Claus and was able to inform me that he wanted a Space Hopper for Christmas. You remember those things, like a big solid rubber balloon with two ears which you could sit on and bounce around on. So I thought it would be a good idea to blow the thing up and leave it at the end of his bed. That Christmas morning when we awoke we found it strange to find there was not a sound from his bedroom. He should be up and about by now and coming in to tell us what Santa had left. Not a sign. So I had to go to his room and opened the door. There was the poor child, wide awake, sucking his thumb and looking in abject terror at this monster at the end of his bed. I didn’t make that mistake again.

So full blown Christmas was back in our house, Santa, tree, crib, decorations, fantasy and of course the real meaning. And now with grandchildren the whole cycle begins anew.

Have yourself a Very Happy Christmas this year and for all the years to come.

Ghosts

Ghosts! Now there’s a thing. Do you believe in them? I don’t but seeing the season that’s in it, I’m going to tell you my own ghost stories. These actually happened to me and I sometimes think about them. I’ll tell them exactly as they occurred with no additions or subtractions.

The first took place when I was about 10 years of age in a little fishing village in County Down called Ardglass. The very place that Van Morrison sang about in that song of his, Coney Island. I know all the places in that song as I went to Ardglass for a month every summer as a kid to my grandfather’s house. I had really great times there and great memories. I am always amused by the song because following it on a map, takes you all over the place and a most unlikely route to follow. I’m actually convinced Van told the orchestra to play some nice music and he just made it up on the spot. Anyway, I digress. The house backed onto the sea with a small stone yard and wall at the back beyond which were rocks which were covered at high tide. We had a massive bay window in the back of the house overlooking this yard where you had a clear view of the bay, the harbour and the long hilly region across the water called Ardtole. On a stormy day, I would sit at this window watching the waves crash over the little wall right into our yard where they spent their fury in a mess of lather and water. Fabulous.

Upstairs there was a landing which led to the back bedroom where I slept. I don’t know why, but we always slept with the doors open in that house which meant I could see across into my mother’s bedroom, just able to make out the end of her bed. I loved sleeping in that back bedroom because a short distance away across the bay was a lighthouse, whose powerful beam swept through my bedroom, lighting up the night momentarily and then plunging it into darkness again.

I awoke one night and lay quietly watching the room as the lighthouse beam kept it’s rhythm perfectly, illuminating and darkening the room. Nothing stirred, not wind nor sea nor being. The silence was palpable. After a while I looked in the direction of my mother’s bedroom across the landing. There she was, a tall dark figure at the end of her bed stretching out her hand to switch on her bedroom light. I turned away to get back to sleep assuming my mother was making a visit to the bathroom. But no expected light came on and suddenly the fear slammed into me. I was instantly drenched in terror and sweat. With a yell I jumped up in the bed at the same time turning towards the ghost. The bottom half of the woman was missing and slowly the rest of her vanished as well. The lighthouse beam lit up the room to reveal absolutely nothing. But now my real mother had appeared and this time the light did switch on. She came into me and asked what the matter was as I had screamed pretty loudly. I told her what had happened and she told me not to worry as it had been a bad dream. Didn’t feel like a dream to me but I accepted what she said and settled down to sleep again. For some reason I didn’t have much trouble doing just that.

The funny thing was that my mother told me years later that the house in Ardglass was haunted.

My second ghostly experience happened in my home in Raheny. A simple ordinary semi detached house in a Dublin suburb and certainly not old enough to be haunted. I can’t remember what age I was but I was around 12 or 13. I used to sleep in the same room as my brother, his bed was near the window while mine was near the door. Once again I awoke in the middle of the night, or so I assumed until I realised that there was a low level of light in the room. Naturally I thought it was the early dawn until I noticed that the light wasn’t coming in through the curtains, but from behind me. I sat up in my bed and turned around to see the wall which usually stood between my parent’s bedroom and mine was gone. In it’s place stood my father in his pyjamas and holding a rosary beads in his left hand. The light was coming from behind him and wasn’t defined. For some reason I didn’t feel any fear at all and calmly asked him who he was, even though I can see he was my dad. He made no reply and I picked up a flashlight I kept on my bedside table and turned it on. Everything reverted to normal. The wall was back where it should be and my father was gone. I don’t know why, but I felt a strange sort of calm, enough to be able to switch the light off and go back to sleep. When I told my brother in the morning what had happened he just said I was nuts.

I’m not sure how to categorise this following story but it was the most frightening of them all. Once again I awoke in the early hours and just lay in the dark thinking about one thing or another. Suddenly I felt this terrible presence in the room. It’s not easy to describe as I couldn’t place it in one area of the room, it just seemed to fill the space all around me. And it was incredibly evil. An almost tangible substance seemed to hover all around me. Now, don’t laugh (well, laugh if you want, I do now), but the only thing I could think to do was to put my head under the bed covers. In fact I think every other part of my being was paralysed with fear and it was the only thing I could actually do. Lying there under the covers I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t cry out. The only thing between me and this diabolic malevolence outside was the sheet and blanket under which I hid. Hide? That’s a joke! The fiend knew exactly where I was and I had to get rid of it. I prayed. I thought “Jesus, please make this thing go away”. And with that, the fear suddenly left. I felt a rush of calm through my body and was able to stick my head out from under the covers. Whatever it was, it was gone. I can tell you, I never felt such relief in my life before. And because I was so strangely calm I was able to return to sleep.

And that’s my three ghosts for you. Of course, the last one was surely more than a ghost? I don’t believe in the devil, but that time I came close. And if it turns out that there is a living entity called Satan, well, I met him that night.

Other than the usual things one can amuse (or more correctly terrify) oneself with like conjuring up faces in the dark when alone, I have nothing else to tell except for my Ouija board experience which I relate below. I’ll add here that it is not a good idea to dabble with the unknown, not because there is anything there to jump out at you in the dark, but the mind can play tricks. So if you want to spend a night in a haunted house, bring a friend.

Finally to the Ouija board. Many years ago (in my early twenties) I was with a couple of friends in their house when one of them suggested we try calling up a couple of spirits (and not the bottle variety either). They had a Ouija board and got it out. I don’t know how these things work, some psychologists say your mind moves the planchette subconsciously, although I’d prefer to think one of the people controlling it actually do the moving. In this case I was with a very good friend who I trusted implicitly. She said she wasn’t moving it and I sure as hell wasn’t. I believe her, I think. Anyway, we didn’t have a proper planchette so we used an upside down glass. We both put two fingers each on the glass and began.

“Is there anybody there?” said my friend. I just smiled. Nothing. So she repeated the question.

To my surprise the glass started to move slowly towards the Yes word on the board.

“You’re moving the glass,” I accused her.

“I swear I’m not,” she replied.

So we asked the spook what it’s name was. I can’t remember if it actually told us, but it did say it was the soul of a little girl who had lived in this house at the turn of the century. She didn’t tell us much else about herself, but did appear to lose her temper once or twice as the glass fairly moved in circles around the board till we told her to stop. I can only recall today two things which stuck in my mind. Once was that I would marry a girl called Mary Stephenson and I would die in my early thirties. Well, she was wrong about my death as I’m now in my early sixties (and hopefully will reach more than my early nineties) and I actually married a girl called Mary Jameson. Wowee! Wowee! Ain’t that creepy!

So what do you think? Did I see any ghosts or not? Some people will say definitely, but personally I doubt it. But I find the experiences fascinating to look back on.

The woman in Ardglass had to be a dream. Or else my mind fooled me into thinking I saw a woman when it could easily have been a shadow, perhaps caused by the rotating lighthouse beam or car lights passing outside. Your mind, as I’ve mentioned above, can really play tricks on you. I remember once awaking one early summer morning with the daylight streaming into my bedroom. I was only about a year married and we didn’t have much money after purchasing a new home and we didn’t have any wardrobes, just a rail with clothes hanging on it. I recall lying in the bed looking at this clothes rail and in my half awakened state somewhere between sleep and fully awake I could see clearly that a guy from work was standing beside the rail. Because I knew I had just awoken and my eyes were still blurry, I knew nobody could be standing there. But there he was, as large as life. Naturally I had to solve this mystery and I lay still, watching him. As my eyes became less hazy from sleep, he gradually turned into a white shirt which was hanging from the rail. So easy for your mind to fool you.

The more intriguing ghost, however, is the one of my father. I was left sitting up in bed with a flashlight in my hand, so I was fully awake. Perhaps initially it started as a dream which caused me to wake and pick up the flashlight. The strange thing is how calm I remained during the aftermath, calm enough to turn the light off and go back to sleep.

But the most intriguing of all was the episode with the evil entity and me shivering in fear under the bedclothes. What had brought that terror on? And why when I thought to pray (and these in the days when I was a full blown atheist) the mind numbing terror lifted and was replaced by a heightened sense of peace? Ah, once again the believers will say I had a visit from the dark one while the sceptics will say it was all in my mind.

So there you have it, my small contribution to Halloween this year. The night when the gates of Hell are opened and all sorts of ghouls and demons prowl the highways and byways. Oh, I saw a few demons that night, but they were all drunk!

I’m a complete sceptic in these matters. There simply is no such thing as a ghost. And I’m always amused by people who swear this house or other is haunted, who suddenly tell you that you can’t visit it anymore as it was torn down when you ask where exactly it is. How convenient! Of course, we can thank the arrival of electric light to deal the whole ghost business a death blow. You see a spectre, you turn on a light, and bam! The spectre is gone!

However, if there turns out to be an afterlife, well then I’m going to come back and haunt all those sceptics like me. That’ll show ‘em!

Why No Revolution?

So after the Celtic Tiger the Irish economy has crashed. The government, the banks and the property tycoons have brought our country to it’s knees. Those out of work have reached nearly half a million. Thousands have been made redundant. Hundreds have lost their homes. And the government have the cheek to tell us the recession is over!

So what are the army doing? What has there been no revolution? Why have half the government ministers who led us into this mess, along with the bankers and property developers not been manacled and thrown into jail? Not to punish anybody but to make a clear statement for the future that people who wilfully cause catastrophes like this will not walk away free, pocketing the money they made (including massive handouts and pensions) and laughing at the rest of us.

I have quite happily chucked the idea into the mix that the government, bankers and property developers are the ones to blame. But are they? Some will say that the Western World was heading that way. The good times simply could not continue. But Canada for one doesn’t appear to be in the same mess and although I’m not sure why, it does appear that their financial regulation systems picked up on early troubles in the US markets and did something about similar potential threats in their own areas. It seems in Ireland we did not. What in hell was the financial regulator doing? He seems to have allowed the banks to lend 100% mortgages to people. The banks were allowed to loan massive amounts of money to single businessmen. One of these guys even moved his loans over to another financial institution while his own bank was being audited in order that the auditors would see nothing amiss. These guys are supposed to know what they are doing, but even the dogs in the streets could see that the bubble was just getting bigger and bigger and had to blow at some point. One result is that today when I hear a financial package being advertised with the usual blurb that it is regulated by the financial regulator, I just laugh. In fact, I’d venture the opinion that I don’t think economists really know what they are talking about. They seem to disagree with each other all the time and they sure as hell all can’t be right! We’ve seen the results.

Did the property developers not see that the market could not sustain the continual growth? Did they assume there would be buyers for all the property they were throwing up all over the place? They borrowed massive amounts from the banks who were all too willing to lend in the hope that the bust would never come or at best come only after they were long gone. What were they thinking?

But worst of all the government, who after all are where the buck is supposed to stop, never saw this coming. Or if they did, they buried their heads in the sand. So these guys who were voted in were not fit for purpose. I don’t mind a small mistake or two. After all we are only human. But this couldn’t be called a mistake. This was a catastrophic meltdown! For years the government mismanaged and misruled. They put their friends in positions of power. They regarded the ordinary man on the street as a fool. They paraded around as if they were kings ordained by God on high to rule.

And do you know the worst of it? They are still in power and they are still allowing the same old thing to happen time and time again. They are allowing semi-state bodies, such as FAS and the HSE to continue to mismanage and waste public money. The civil service is a crying disgrace. One hand simply doesn’t know what the other hand is doing. The inefficiency is palpable. It is scary. What else is going to crawl out of the woodwork?

But there’s also us. You and me. Can we be blamed for this mess? To a certain extent, I have to say yes. We seemed to lose the run of ourselves. Celtic Tiger roared and we all got rich (well, relatively speaking). There were few unemployed. Most had their own homes, cars, mod cons, you name it. Most went off on their sunshine holiday (no longer once a year, but twice!). Many even bought property abroad. Oh yes, it was a good time to be alive. Let the good times roll! Okay, I acknowledge, to our shame, there existed far too many poor people, but that’s another subject.

Then the whole edifice came crashing down around our feet. Many found that the house they called home and which was mortgaged up to the hilt, lost 30% or more of it’s value, plunging them into negative equity. Many lost their jobs and then because they couldn’t keep up their mortgage repayments lost their homes too. Those financial idiots who loaned massive amounts of money with a great big smile on their faces, now took the houses back and chucked people out on the street. Our own fault? Come on, if you offer a man 100% mortgages and get rich schemes (property abroad etc.), you can’t expect him to be a economist and see through the deadly candy he was lapping up. Not only did the lending institutions (regulated by the financial regulator, remember!) lend so much money, the government didn’t try to stop them. The same government voted in by the people to do a good job of governing and looking after the state. And that means making sure that people are behaving with a modicum of sense. After all, they are supposed to have all the experts anybody could ever need to advise them.

So I think we can safely lay the major blame for the mess at the feet of the government first and foremost. After that come the financial people and the property developers. I suspect after that would follow the semi-state agencies who squandered public money through inefficiency and bad management. At the bottom of the heap comes the rest of us.

But let’s take a brief diversion and consider the real cause of the problem. I think this can be summed up in one word: greed. What in hell does anybody want with a loan of around €100 million? And this was what one particular banker had. Bankers couldn’t earn enough money. Property developers couldn’t develop enough property. Government ministers couldn’t get enough power and all that goes with it.

The current government, Fianna Fáil, has been in power for the last 10 years non stop. In fact they have been in power since 1987 except for a gap of about 3 years. That is far too long for one party. They get lazy and corrupt. They get power crazy. They don’t keep their eye on the ball. And we can see that too. During the Celtic Tiger years when our economy was booming, why did the government not save for the rainy day? Surely they knew the boom years could not last or were they stupid enough to think that it would last till long after they were dead and gone, and even then, did they never think of their children and grandchildren who would be left to pick up the tab? And what about all their financial advisers? Were they not advising them? And if so, were they not listening? It was criminal the way these guys let the country run out of control. And of course it’s never they who will pay. No, it’s the ordinary guy on the street.

Can a change of government do the trick? Who do we have? The Greens are a joke. They are propping up an incompetent government in order to get their environmental policies through. This is a joke. The environment can’t be changed by us. The sun is causing the climate changes and there’s little we can do about it. So forget about them. Fianna Gael are a clone of Fianna Fáil and I can’t see them doing much better. So we’re left with Labour. Is a Labour government, if they got into office in the morning capable of doing any better than what we have. I for one definitely think so.

However, I’m not a cheer leader for Labour (or any other party) and I really think the best thing is to stop voting along party lines and vote for people (of whatever party) who look like they could do a decent and honest job. Then once your candidate gets elected, watch him or her and if they do well, vote them in again. If not, vote them out. Probably a bit of pie in the sky, but once politicians begin to realise the only reason they’ll earn votes is if they earn them, we might find a change of attitude and they will climb down from their ivory towers and began to treat the ordinary citizens of this country with a bit of respect. And realise that they are in power to do a specific job and not to pull the wool over everybody’s else’s eyes or to rip the rest of us off.

The government needs to stand up and take responsibility, and I haven’t seen many of them do that. They should take responsibility, admit they blew it and start to fix it. But not by taking away children’s allowance, attacking the pensioners again, taking money from easy targets. No, they need to get creative about this. What about asking the rich bond holders and corporate people who have the money to take the biggest hits? What about taking away some of the massive handouts all those bankers walked away with? What about removing that ridiculous tax free status for rich artists? What about clamping down on all those tax exiles? What about following Britain and removing children’s allowance from those who don’t really need it? And I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to fix this mess rather than the way they are currently going about it. The government have paid millions out to consultants to get advice, well it’s about time they paid consultants to give them some good advice for a change. I’m sure it’s there.

So, why has there been no revolution? I guess because it’s not the way to go. Revolution only puts in power probably worse people than we already have. And while I insist we badly need a change of government, let’s do it the democratic way. And if the Greens and Fianna Fáil really had the good of the country at heart, they would step aside and let the people decide. And for God’s sake, let’s make good decisions this time.

Do We Need Religion Today?

Take a brief look at the world around you today. Crime and vandalism are rife. Drunkenness abounds on the streets and fights are common. The young seem to have no respect for their elders and their parents appear to allow them to do what they like. Idiot driving pervades our roads and nothing is sacred. The drugs trade is flourishing and hardly a week goes by without somebody being shot through inter-gang warfare.

A very negative start to this article, but hey, that’s the way it is now. In the 1950s in Ireland murder was such a rare occurrence that when it did happen it was headline news for days. Do you remember the Indian medical student who strangled his Irish girlfriend, cut her body up and burnt it? Today murder is so common it is more often relegated to the inner pages.

In the 50s and 60s you could walk any street in Ireland (I’m talking about southern Ireland here) in relative safety. Nobody would harass you and certainly you were in no danger of getting kicked to death by a gang of yobs. Today there are places where most savvy citizens wouldn’t go, especially at night.

Okay, we can say there was institutionalised violence, children were not treated so kindly in many of the orphanages. The Magdalene Laundries cannot hold their heads high and of course the Catholic Church needs to hang it’s head in shame more because it refused to recognise that it had a problem and tried to cover it up. There are paedophiles in every walk of life but because these guys were ordained, it just didn’t do to expose them. While it may be easy for us today to point the finger at the bishops of the time, we cannot judge them on today’s standards. Most Irish Catholics would probably have done the same thing then.

So what has changed? Some point to the rise in violence on television, cinemas, and music. Others point to poverty, bad parenting, lack of discipline in school and the easy availability of drugs. Then the rush to riches during the so called Celtic tiger gave people a feeling that they could now afford whatever they wanted and pay later.

The problem probably lies in some or a combination of the above, however, I doubt television, cinema or music have much to do with it. When Elvis Presley first appeared on the scene, concerned parents and other pillars of society saw the devil in Presley’s music. I wonder what those same people would think if they heard some of the satanic heavy metal around today? Some years ago some parents sued the band Judas Priest because they said their sons had committed suicide while listening to the band’s music and because there were hidden messages in the songs. To complicate matters further some of these were so called back masked messages. In order to hear the message it was necessary to play the record backwards. Another message which was discernible in normal play was the words “Do it”. Of course the first question is do what? Ozzy Osbourne was also sued for his song “Suicide Solution”. However, these kids were long gone down the path of destruction before they even started listening to this music.

So what about television and cinema? Some of today’s films are extremely violent, some just a horrific gore fest. Some of the most gruesome films show in close and excruciating detail every slash of the knife, every cut, enough to churn a hardy stomach. But seriously, do such films make one want to go out and copy the action? I seriously doubt it. It’s fantasy. Horrible maybe, but fantasy nevertheless.

What about poverty and bad parenting? Even in the 50s and 60s in Ireland we had a lot more poverty than today and bad parents too. But it didn’t product a brood of sullen, violent youths prepared to kill. And if anybody says that nobody goes out for a night on the town with the intention to kill another person, why do they bring knives with them?

Lack of discipline occurs in some schools but not all. I have always thought that teaching was a vocation and I believe a lot of teachers should never be allowed near a class of kids. Not for any sinister reasons, but for the simple fact that they cannot teach. I had my fair share of such nincompoops. They drilled poetry into you. They drilled Irish language into you. They drilled religion into you. But what they didn’t do was to teach you how to think for yourself. In my day discipline was relatively easy to keep as they were allowed to give you a few slaps with the leather and it didn’t hurt either. It was a bad decision to take this out of schools and a lot of wayward behaviour today could be stopped in it’s tracks by a good belt. I don’t mean a savage lashing as I witnessed in my day being handed out by a christian (small c on purpose because in this particular rage he was far from being a follower of Christ) brother to one of my schoolmates. He even made the poor guy kneel before him and kiss the ground while the rest of us looked on. Who was going to stand up to this particular thug? But that’s another story. So today we have the do-gooders tut-tutting and sticking all sort of labels on bold kids and then in some cases stuffing them up with drugs. I ask you, what planet are they on? So I guess the lack of discipline, not only in schools, but also in the home itself may be a contributor to our sorry society today. But I still don’t think it’s a major one.

Drugs are certainly one area of deep concern where people can be so coked up they hardly know what they’re doing. Drugs can change personality also. And they weren’t generally available in the 50s (although they were certainly coming on stream in the 60s).

However, I believe the lack of religion is a major cause of the breakdown in society today. Many may find that surprising, but consider the following: lack of spirituality often fosters lack of respect for others as well as oneself. When a person has no respect for others, there is no reason for him to consider the consequences of his actions in relation to other people. Some will point out that there are very good living atheists in society who have no need of religion, but I would contend that committed atheists are generally humanistic and in a sense have a faith in humanity. But when a person has no such faith in anything, he tends towards nihilism and self gratification to the exclusion of others. He has nothing to which to orient himself. No spiritual values, no humanistic values, all of which points towards no values whatsoever. This is a dangerous position for anybody to find themselves in.

Let’s take a brief look at the Jamie Bulger case in Liverpool where a 2 year old child was adducted, tortured and murdered by two 10-year old kids. This is horrendous by anybody’s standards. What made these two do something like this? It wasn’t simply a situation which got out of control and went horribly wrong. No, the violence was systematic and took it’s awful course to death. It appears that these two were brought up in very bad family situations and were basically left to their own devices with no guidance whatsoever. It may be that this is a rare occurrence and you will always get people like this who are totally out of control. After all, they were not the first child killers in Britain. Unfortunately statistics seem to indicate that this type of crime is on the increase.

Another type of crime which is also on the increase around the world is the lone gunman who kills as many people as possible and then turns the gun on himself (or even two gunmen as in the Columbine high school massacre). This is a cold, calculated act of evil. What is going through these guy’s heads as they contemplate such a thing?

I would put forward the opinion, that any child who had been raised in a religious household (with the important caveat that the particular religion was uplifting and not oppressive) or even in a household where the parents held a sincere humanistic view is much more unlikely to act in a manner as discussed above. There is always the exception which proves the rule, of course. But all things being equal, I would hazard the opinion that religion can be good for humanity and society. Naturally the parents need to be good at parenting. It’s no use being brought up in a spiritual environment if your parents ignore you.

Without religion or maybe I should talk about spirituality which is more open and less narrow, people seem to be foundering. Look at the Celtic tiger and what happened to people in Ireland when they suddenly thought they had a lot of money. Banks gave 100% mortgages. Loans were no problem to access. Credit cards seemed like a ticket to spend, spend, spend. One notable thing I noticed was in my day when people got married, they moved (if they were lucky) into an empty house. My house warming had no chairs for my guests to sit on. Over time we accumulated the necessary items. But today (or at least during the boom years) it seems to me, people weren’t content with that. Once they had their house it was full of furniture, televisions, digital players all purchased with a nice piece of plastic or on the never-never. People didn’t seem to know the value of money. They simply lost the run of themselves.

Capitalism continues to push it’s money grabbing ways and forgets about morality. I get sick of hearing managing directors of big companies blather on about how important their employees are to them, how cherished they are and then to make them redundant willy nilly when things get a little rough. Suddenly gone is the concern for their charges and they let them go irrespective of age, mortgage status, financial situation or family commitments. To be fair, there is the odd “good” company out there, but unfortunately few and far between. And how about these rip off merchants who advertise competitions on TV with their small hard to read text and not on the screen long enough? They want you to enter a competition for a trip to New York or some such place and then send stuff to your mobile phone taking a couple of euro every time and continue to do so until you text Stop to them. How many people, especially those not especially technology savvy are being taken to the cleaners by cowboys like these? Unfortunately legal, but highly immoral.

And then of course shops, hotels, among others appear to be able to charge what they want. I’ve seen vast differences between the price of petrol or beer depending where you go. Want to take your family to the cinema or theatre and see what they charge you for popcorn. Captive audience! And what do our flamboyant government ministers have to say about this? The same buys who allowed the banks and builders drive our economy into the ground? Nothing! Shop around! It’s nothing to do with my department! Like the state of our health service, they take no responsibility. And you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s not them or their buddies who will pay for the mess. It’s you and me.

Capitalism and consumerism are trashing traditional values. For example, look at the X-factor television show. Everybody now sings like an American. Different traditions and cultures are something to cherish, not to destroy. TV and the internet are making us all more Americanized with American values, not all bad perhaps but certainly not all good. And to give an idea of the power of TV, when the French stood up over the US going to war with Iraq over nonexistent nuclear weapons what do the American people do? They refuse to buy French products but they didn’t stop to examine their own consciences and ask were their leaders telling them the truth.

So, what do I mean by religion? In fact I would be better speaking about spirituality rather than religion which is just a structured form of spirituality. Some people need this structure while others do not. We don’t necessarily need religion, but we certainly need some sort of spirituality. Something as simple as getting carried away by the beauty of music and art. The ability to be able to sit and contemplate in a forest, on a mountain, by the sea. To look at the stars on a cloud free night and contemplate the majesty of infinity. To be able to sit quietly in a church and simply ponder the mystery of existence. To allow oneself to glimpse, no matter how fleetingly, a sense of something beyond humanity. Beyond our material world with all it’s shortcomings. And this spirituality is far from a claustrophobic, forbidding, oppressive Catholic religion which was particularly abundant in the 50s and 60s under the loveless and austere rule of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and Taoiseach/President Eamon de Valera. This should be an uplifting of the spirit. It should be about the joy and freedom of being human. Whether or not you believe in a God doesn’t really matter. You can experience this spirituality if you try. Some of the hardliners try to explain it all away as a nasty side effect of evolution, but I would contend that they are wrong. Spirituality is something inherent in all of us. It is like the air we breathe, we need it to enhance our lives. How poor we would be if we could not experience some of the things mentioned above? Some prefer to take it further and allow God into the picture. That’s fair enough and there is plenty of room for him as well. But those God fearing folk should not try to force that view down those who have decided that for them God does not exist. Or are even in ignorance of his existence or otherwise.

And this gift of spirituality should be nurtured starting in the home. It should be encouraged by the school system. We don’t need the type of spirituality where you have wimpy priests or holier-than-thou laypeople going on about relating a football match to your life with Jesus. Or a tedious sermon about the love of God in our lives. What does that mean? No, we need a dynamic religion, one with hope, one with joy. Not a wagging finger saying everything is bad. We need the sort of encouragement which shows us how important it is to be human and especially to allow others to be human too. We have to learn to live in a society which has other people in it, who have rights exactly the same as our own. And we have to appreciate that right in others. If the universe is a cold, dark place, what hope can there be for a caring society? If the universe, on the other hand, has a sense of meaning, this can allow us to be so much more free and caring. A sense of meaning does not necessarily equate to an afterlife, after all many atheists live a full and meaningful life without God, but they mostly have their humanism to hang onto. This humanism which can give them a sense of something else, something greater than themselves. And after all, the mass of humanity is far greater than any one of us.

I hesitate to say that someone who does not experience some sort of inner peace from time to time is doomed to a cruel purposeless existence. Myself, as an agnostic, can look around and see hope in personal family and beyond to the great family all around me. At the end of the day, we are all on this earth together and we will sink or swim together. That in itself can give a great sense of freedom. Of something bigger than me. If there is a God, then so much the better.

I think encouraging this sort of approach to life in our children and in those around us can help make the world a better and more agreeable place to live in. A place where we can share our humanity, our troubles, our weaknesses and strengths and together help to enhance each other’s lives. No matter the colour of skin, race or religion. Go on, give it a try.

To be Honest, You have to be Agnostic!

There are really only three positions one can take when considering the existence of God. Faith, atheism or agnosticism. Of these the one which gets the most bad press is agnosticism. But to me this is the most honest of the three. Faith says that you believe in God whatever you perceive him to be. On the other hand atheism takes the same position except it denies the existence of God. Agnostics sit on the fence.

So what is wrong with sitting on the fence? Many say you have to make up your mind and take a decision. But how can I take a decision on something for which there is no evidence either way. But the atheists say there is a 99.9% chance of there being no God. Evolution has put paid to all that superstition. At the beginning of the last century some highly respected physicists said everything that was to be known about the universe was now known, all that remained was the crossing of a few t’s and the dotting of a few i’s. Then relativity and quantum physics came along and blew that idea right out of the water. So how certain is certain? Remember that old joke about bleach killing 99.9% of all known germs? As one comedian so aptly put it, it’s not the 99.9% I’m worried about, what about the 0.1%? Those are the bastards to worry about.

On the other hand those of faith say that they know Jesus. They go further and say that they have met him, have spoken with him. Well fair enough, but they can’t prove this to me. Without meaning to be disrespectful, I could equally say I have met and spoken with the fairies at the end of my garden. I might even believe it, but I reckon I’d have a hell of a job trying to convince you of that. You can ask me to show you the fairies, but I’d tell you that they are invisible. Then you can ask me to show you something that the fairies have done and I’d say they have given me my health. Eventually after detailed questioning I’d get frustrated and tell you that you just don’t have any faith.

None of the above means that there is a God or that there isn’t a God. Neither side can prove it either way. So if somebody wants to say they don’t believe in God, that’s fair enough. They can lead just as moral and good a life as anybody else. You don’t have to be a religious person to be a good person. Similarly if someone says they believe in God, that’s fair enough too. However, they should be strong enough to at least admit there is a chance, no matter how small, that they may be mistaken.

So I sit on the fence, not in judgement of anybody, but because I simply don’t know whether or not there is a God. Which is why I think it is the only honest position for me to take. That does not mean that I’m right or that everybody should have that opinion. After all, I could be mistaken.

Today’s atheists are a militant bunch. Many of them don’t seem content to quietly get on with their lives, content in their disbelief. They have to proselytize and try to get everybody to see their point of view. Some even put advertisements on buses telling the world there probably is no God. I wonder why they included the word probably? However, it seems to me that many of their arguments ring a little hollow. They like to set up straw dogs so that they can easily knock them down. They argue with fundamentalists who are just like themselves, head to head, neither side giving an inch. They like to quote the bible extensively telling us what a bad old egg the old testament God was. Getting his chosen people to kill other peoples so that they could have their land. The promised land. Yes, I agree this particular God was a vengeful, blood thirsty fellow, but surely the atheists don’t believe that this is a realistic God to debate? Where is the God of compassion and love? The God of Francis of Assisi? The God of the poor? The God of the sermon on the mount?

Many of the bible stories were written by humankind to try to make sense of the world they found themselves in. On one hand many of the stories like the killing of heathens etc were a history of the Jewish people who were just as blood thirsty as any other race. On the other hand many of the stories were allegories or parables which tried to teach wisdom. For example, many point to the terrible story of Abraham being asked to kill his son, Isaac and even worse Abraham agreeing to go along with the command without question until an angel stays his hand at the last minute and suggests sacrificing a ram (conveniently entangled in a nearby bush) instead. What sort of a God is that who would try and test his loyal subject in such a way? But this was not a story about loyalty or obedience. In those days people did sacrifice their children to their God. The story was trying to teach the people that child sacrifice was not what God demanded. In fact I don’t believe he even demanded sacrifice, but in those days people believed that he did. So let them sacrifice an animal instead. So the atheists should be a little more thoughtful before condemning the bible stories out of hand.

Many of today’s believers are also a militant bunch. Especially those of a fundamentalist and literalist frame of mind. Take the creationists for example. They will tell you if anything in the bible contradicts hard scientific fact, then the bible takes precedence. It’s not that these guys are stupid, many of them have advanced degrees in their fields. It’s just that they are convinced of the literal truth of every word in the bible. It appears similar in the world of Islam where fundamentalist Muslims believe that their Koran is also literally the word of God. Not all Muslims are like that, of course, there are many moderate Muslims as there are many moderate Christians, Jews, etc. But they can’t all be right. Also take the so called Christians who bomb abortion clinics (killing some) in the USA on one hand and then the fanatical Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks. But these are extremists.

Most atheists and believers, however, are not so extreme and are willing to debate their beliefs sensibly and with benefit to both sides of the argument. Similarly with agnostics except they don’t tend to hold extreme views. After all how can a committed agnostic argue with passion on the existence or non existence of God when he has already taken the position of not knowing in the first place? This is not to say agnostics are better people. Many of them simply don’t care either way.

So, I am an agnostic. To be honest, I’d prefer that there is an afterlife and a good God, but maybe that is just because I don’t want to die to nothing. I would rather like there to be a purpose to the universe rather than it just coming into existence and blinking out again. I would like there to be meaning to my life, although many atheists say that there is meaning to life without God or purpose. Just grasp what we have and do the best with it as all we’ll leave behind are our footprints and our children. It is not a bad philosophy, but me being me would prefer more. Maybe that says a lot about me and as the old song says you don’t always get what you want!

The idea of God is crazy! This super being who always existed decided to make a universe with people in it and there it is. Let there be light! And then one day it will all end and we’ll all go to heaven or oblivion (I can’t believe in such a ridiculous place as hell) and that will be it for eternity. Eternity! That’s a concept that nobody can fathom. Try to imagine it. Existing for ever. Surely there has to be an end?

But then again, the idea of a universe popping into existence is also crazy. Whether there was this vacuum of seething particles or absolutely nothing, somehow this universe pops up with all it’s incredible and complex laws eventually leading to humans who are capable of contemplating it. Think about it. What happened before the Big Bang? Was there a previous Big Bang stretching back to when? What started the whole thing off? And then again, why should there be just nothing? Nothing is about as hard to understand as something. Can you imagine nothing? I mean really nothing, not even something for nothing to be in. The mind boggles.

There are those (who we generally refer to as mystics) who after years of contemplation begin to glimpse the reality behind the universe. They suddenly have a flash of understanding which quickly vanishes again. So where does this experience come from? Maybe something deep down in the human psyche? Or maybe something else. In fact, in my opinion assuming that God does exist, the only way we mortals can access him in this life is through deep contemplation (denied probably to most of us).

Which brings me to the “God of the Gaps”. Sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to those less technologically advanced. For example imagine showing a caveman electric light. Suddenly you stand up in his cave and click something on the wall, and an electric bulb flashes on in the ceiling above. What else would he think but that it was magic. Or something from the gods. This is similar to ourselves were we to come across a highly advanced technological civilisation hailing from interstellar space. If they have achieved the technology to cross light years of space, they sure as hell won’t be wasting time buzzing aircraft or abducting humans. In fact if they didn’t want us to see them, then you can rest assured that there’s no way we’d see them. In ancient times (and perhaps not so ancient) our ancestors saw gods behind every tree, in every stream, with every gust of wind or downpour of rain, with every crop failure and success. But now we have grown up (or like to think we have) and have a much better explanation for weather and crop failures. So we remove God from those. But then what about the miracles? Like Lourdes for example. Well, these are probably mostly psychological (a strong faith can produce wonders). I often think of the sceptic who said he was surprised that no artificial limbs were to be found among all the crutches left by supposedly healed individuals.

Then the bible takes a bashing. Galileo and others firmly put the sun in the centre of the solar system which many said directly contradicted the good book (for there it says that the sun was stopped in the heavens implying that it revolved around the earth). Probably the most devastating blow was the theory of evolution which said that we didn’t even need God to create us. We evolved from the biochemistry of the earth, which was created from the aftermath of the sun’s formation. Now the scientists tell us that the whole universe was created in the event known as the Big Bang. No need for God at all. And as sciences progresses it gradually pushes out the “God of the Gaps” leaving no room for God to hide.

All of which brings us back to the point I made above that it is just as crazy to think that God created the Universe as it is to think that the Universe created itself. But, you may object, God didn’t create himself. He was always there? Okay, so the universe was always there. Again no proof and the agnostic accepts this. It all boils down to what you personally believe. So if you think that Jesus, or Jehovah, or Allah is the God you worship, that’s fine. I won’t argue with you. But you must also respect my agnosticism and let’s be honest: admit that you ultimately don’t know.

Let’s consider some other crazy ideas. To some the stories religion teach us, for example Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, the changing of bread and wine to the body and blood of God, are nuts. The idea that God, supposedly omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, would create two people and put them in a garden, and then tell them not to eat of a certain tree is contradictory. God must have known what would happen. If he didn’t he is not omniscient. And then when this pair do exactly what God knew they were going to do anyway, he punishes them. It is like me giving sweets to my kids and telling them not to eat them. What sort of parent would I be if I then punished my kids for doing what I knew they would do.

Now consider the changing of bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. We are told that after the transformation (or transubstantiation, as it’s more properly known) the bread still looks, feels, and tastes like bread as does the wine still feel, look and taste like wine. But to the believer they are totally transformed into the precious body and blood of their lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Nutty or what?

Okay, now let’s see what the physicists are asking us to believe. The moon is not there when nobody is looking at it. This is seriously considered as reality by some physicists (including Nobel prize winners). Quantum physics exploded onto the world in the early twentieth century and is still the most complete theory of reality we have. We even refer to it as the standard model of physics although it still has it’s problems which remain to be sorted out. Two famous physicists fought over the interpretation of quantum mechanics for years: Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Unfortunately Niels won (at least for now) and so the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is with us to this day and many physicists have concluded that human observation of a microscopic event changes the reality of the event. In other words, if nobody is looking at the moon, it could be anywhere!

There are billions and billions of copies of us in the universe. Again coming from quantum theory, in order to account for certain experimental results the many worlds theory was suggested and surprisingly many scientists today would favour that interpretation of reality. This basically says that every time a particle or atom has a choice on what to do next or where to go, it chooses every eventuality. Therefore if a particle has a choice to go in one of two directions, it chooses both, splitting the universe at that point. So now we have two copies of our universe, one in which the particle went one way, the other in which it went a different way. So now we have two universes with two copies of every sun, star, planet, particle in each universe. Two copies of every person! And as every particle has normally many more choices of which direction to go and there are billions of particles in our universe, we now have billions of copies of our universe all slightly different. Nutty or what?

We have taken two examples from religion and science and both are as nutty as each other and it actually seems that the religious ideas are easier to swallow. So what is this all about? I think it is really man trying to find an explanation for his existence. Why he is here. He did it in biblical times with stories just as physicists do today with stories/theories. The more we think we know, the more we know that we know very little.

I would now like to discuss the problem of evil. For me this is the greatest obstacle to belief in God. If God is supposedly infinitely good, then why does he allow evil to exist? If he can’t prevent it, then he is not all powerful; if he can prevent it, he is not all good. The idea that he has to allow evil in order that we can have free will doesn’t wash. At least not with me. You can argue that he also gave us intelligence to see what is good or evil. Surely intelligence shows that fighting and killing each other is not the way to go? But our intelligence doesn’t go far enough as apparently many don’t see the stupidity of not working together. We are too greedy. Too power mad. Too into looking after ourselves to the detriment of others. Whatever you may think of Jesus Christ, he certainly left us some incredibly great lessons in how to deal with each other for the better. We may learn that in time, but why does it take so long?

In fact, some people do not even have a conscience so how can they make a rational choice between evil and good? A sadist who kills feels it is good for him. He likes it, enjoys it and therefore why shouldn’t he? He just doesn’t care or have any empathy with other human beings. So why didn’t God give him a conscience?

Then there is the problem of suffering. As far as I’m concerned suffering is an abomination which is one reason so many scientists and doctors are working towards it’s elimination. I do not believe that God so designed a world that he has to punish every single individual in it just because the first people he put in it disobeyed him. Come on! It’s like me punishing all my kids (I have only two, by the way) just because of what one of them did. Just doesn’t make sense. This whole atonement thing where the son of God arrives on earth and is horribly tortured and put to death so that he can repent for our sins makes no sense. And after that, down through the centuries, the church has decreed that suffering is a good thing. A good thing! If Christ is God and he did come to earth, it was surely to show us that there are better ways to live our lives than the ways we were going about it. His message of love and forgiveness is so powerful that the redemption thing pales beside it. He said the kingdom of god was within us. In order words, get off our lazy asses and seriously begin to work for a better world. Of course a man with a message like that in the Roman occupied Jerusalem of the time was asking for trouble and he was crucified by the Romans. But that was not his message. If anything his message was one of hope. His message was the resurrection. But no, the church had to concentrate on the death bit.

And now they have been shown up in a very bad light. For years they held us in the grip of fear. Even the constitution of Ireland was half written by the church. One couldn’t look sideways but the church heard about it and steps were taken. If you didn’t go to mass, you were hell bound. If you ate meat on Fridays, you were hell bound. The fear they engendered eventually went too far and it is no wonder that young people of my generation rebelled. And now where are they? The churches are empty. The only reason most go to church today is for weddings and funerals.

Also, it was not the evil of child abuse which was the greatest sin, but the cover up. These priests who stood in the pulpit and told us that bad thoughts were sinful, covered up and hid the greatest sin of all. They shunted paedophile priests to different parishes in the hope nobody would find out and realise that priests were human after all and not some kind of higher life form. Instead of being good decent human beings, standing up, admitting what was going on and doing something positive about it, they hid it. And the really sad thing is the thousands of good priests who have been deeply affected by this shame not of their own making.

And still the church can’t see and refuses to change. I think they would continue the cover up if they could. As far as the church is concerned women are second class citizens as are gay people. When are they going to give their priests the option of marriage and stop making marriage a poor second class to celibacy? Why won’t they kill the nonsensical doctrines of hell and purgatory as they did Limbo some years back? Why don’t they get rid of infallibility? The pope underneath all his glitter and power is human and as prone to error as the best of us. Why don’t they scotch Humanae Vitae? Why don’t they open the church to full collegiality, the power of the church should not be held in the hands of one man, the bishops and laity must share in it too.

Sometimes I think that perhaps the Jewish religion is a better one. This was what Jesus was, all his life, he never was a Christian!

So true to my agnosticism, I brought up my own children without forcing religion down their throats like it was mine. I tried to answer their questions as honestly as I could giving both sides of the argument. Now they are free to choose their own religion or none as they see fit. After all, if God is really there, then people find him sooner or later. Further, and maybe more importantly, they are at least free of the fear of hell (something which was drummed into me and I hasten to add, not by my parents). Nuns and Christian Brothers seemed to have a real connection to Satan and hell. What? Did they take tea with him? They sure seemed to know an awful lot about him. The stories we were told in school: people coming back to their loved ones to tell them they were in hell and how they should give up their immoral lifestyle if they wanted to avoid the same fate. Children being shown hell and it’s tortures by apparitions of the virgin Mary. What sort of a twisted mind is that? Hell has no place in the domain of a truly good God. If he has cooked up such a place, then I can tell ya, we’re all in trouble.

Ultimately, if God exists, he is surely so different to us that we cannot even begin to imagine what he may be like. Even the mystics have said they have only ever got glimpses of God, flashes in a great darkness. Of course there are those who say the mystics are deluded.

Finally, if God gave us intelligence, let’s use it and not be led astray by blind faith. If God doesn’t exist, let’s use our intelligence anyway. Maybe it’s all we have to rely on at the end of the day.